Brace for More Volatility

Image shown: The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) since August of last year. The markets have broken through key support levels, and now support has become resistance. Volatility remains heightened since the low-vol ETN blew up in February. This article is the introduction to both the Dividend Growth Newsletter and High Yield Dividend Newsletter, both of which will be released today due to the holiday January 1. By Brian Nelson, CFA Markets are facing big pressure on the trading session January 3. There’s more to the story than rising interest rates. There’s more to the story than the US-China trade war. There’s more to the story than concerns about the political environment. Price-agnostic (indexing and quant) trading, as I outline in … Read more

Valuentum Stock Screeners

This article was sent to members via email December 29. That email can be accessed at the link that follows this article. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everyone, I wanted to provide an update with respect to Valuentum’s stock screeners. We believe our stock screeners are among the most robust when it comes to providing forward-looking data, or data that is important with respect to the investment decision-making process. We publish screens in each of the monthly newsletters, but we also provide a basic weekly screener for download on the left column of the website, “Download Weekly Stock Screener (xls) — login required.”   We also have other products. The more robust DataScreener, for example, is part of the quarterly Financial … Read more

Market Mayhem — Alerts for Members

During these extremely volatile times, it’s important to stay focused. On December 15, we informed all of our members to “Pay Attention.” Shortly thereafter, we notified members of the potential for a stock market technical breakdown. This morning, we offered a pre-market briefing about the importance of thinking about portfolio protection. For Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter members: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?preview=true&m=1110817109903&ca=e2406cd6-c113-4344-8731-493f33fc44a4&id=preview For High Yield Dividend Newsletter members: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?preview=true&m=1110817109903&ca=b3ba530f-38b3-489a-ac96-2961dca89c6b&id=preview For Exclusive members: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?preview=true&m=1110817109903&ca=ba6d90c0-4433-48b2-9b8a-aac4ddf9006e&id=preview We’re here for any questions. Please just let us know how we can help! Kind regards, Brian Nelson, CFA  brian@valuentum.com

On Diversification

Diversification is one of the most important components of equity investing. By Brian Nelson, CFA I wanted to touch base briefly today to see how everyone is doing, and how we can continue to make our website better. We’ve been getting a lot of great feedback on the ability to download our data in Excel and create your customized screens. Instead of having to click on a number of the web pages on the website to access the screens, all you have to do is download the Excel file, and use the standard sorting functionality in it. Let us know if you think we need to host a walk through of how to use the Excel screener. We think it … Read more

Valuentum’s Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) Distribution

The weighted average cost of capital is one of the most subjective measures in corporate finance, but it is also one of the most important ones. “The most important item over time in valuation is obviously interest rates…If interest rates are destined to be at low levels…It makes any stream of earnings from investments worth more money. The bogey is always what government bonds yield….Any investment is worth all the cash you’re going to get out between now and judgment day discounted back. The discounting back is affected by whether you choose interests rates like those of Japan or interest rates like those we had in 1982…When we had 15 percent short-term rates in 1982, it was silly to pay … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending July 20

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending July 20. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week 1st Source (SRCE): now $0.25 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.24. Ally Financial (ALLY): now $0.15 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.13. Antero Midstream GP (AMGP): now $0.125 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.108. Antero Midstream Partners (AM): now $0.415 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.39. AptarGroup (ATR): now $0.34 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.32. Aqua America (WTR): now $0.219 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Study: Valuentum’s Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio

To read the study, please click on the image to download the pdf document (pdf).

The Most Important Topic in Stock Investing

President of Equity Research, Brian Nelson, discusses why price vs. value is the paramount consideration in stock investing. Brian Nelson, CFA: This is Brian Nelson from Valuentum Securities. Today, I wanted to talk about a number of investment concepts that I think are absolutely paramount for every investor to know.  The very first concept is price versus value, and this one is paramount to any investment process. Now I’m not just giving this lip service–this is just one of the core concepts of investing, equity investing. The reality of stock investing is that each company has a present value of future free cash flows that it generates, and those future free cash flows roll up to a fair value, the … Read more

Campbell Soup Representative of Weakening Consumer Staples Equities

Image Source: Neil Conway When our team presented at the CFA Society of Houston in March 2017, we warned about the possible coming pressures on consumer staples stocks, and so far, our concerns have come to fruition. Not only have a number of high-profile players in the tobacco and beverage arena soured, but household consumer products and packaged foods players have felt the pain, too. Campbell Soup’s recent fallout has been among the worst. Shares have been halved since mid-2017. Download slide deck — March 8, 2017: Trust the Numbers, Not Just Management, CFA Society Houston, Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA By Brian Nelson, CFA The consumer staples sector, as measured by the Consumer Staples Select SPDR ETF (XLP), has … Read more

We Said Consumer Staples Would Underperform

Consumer Staples Stocks Underperform — We think investors are wising up to the risks of consumer staples stocks, and increasing risk-free rates seem to already be complicating the investment decision-making process for many investors. Consumer staples equities in the S&P 500 are currently trading at ~19.4 times forward 12-month earnings, well above their sub-17 times 10-year trailing average. We believe investors will continue to swap out of these steady-eddy, but overpriced, gems in the near term, in favor of higher-beta commodity and energy-oriented companies as the market sets up to surge in 2017. We have been warning about the tipping point in Treasury yields and implications on dividend-paying consumer staples equities for some time. – Brian Nelson CFA, December 2016, … Read more