Our Ideas Are Performing Awesome So Far in 2018!!! 6 of the Top 7 of the Dow!

By Brian Nelson, CFA Every day we think about how we can make things easier for our members. Instead of having to visit multiple links on our website with screens, you now have access to one downloadable Excel file where you can sort and rank how you wish. Of course, you can always find those screens in the newsletters, each and every month, too, but we think a weekly data download is a huge value add to our offering. Can you imagine getting updated data every week for 52 weeks of the year for what we charge, let alone two newsletters, hundreds of reports, commentary, and education material? Wow, right? People keep saying we do too much, but when our … Read more

The “Luck” and “Randomness” of Index Funds

Please select the image below to download the document. Image shown, page 1 of 14. Tickerized for Valuentum’s coverage universe.

In the News: General Mills, Realty Income, Energy Transfer

General Mills makes a big deal, Realty Income delivers, while Energy Transfer tries to battle back to even. By Kris Rosemann US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis came out in support of recommendations from the Commerce Department for targeted tariffs on steel and aluminum. While the Defense Department recognizes that imports of low-cost steel (SLX) and aluminum resulting from unfair trading practices undermine national security, it also warns that more broad action could irritate allies. President Trump has until April to decide whether or not to take action on the recommendations from the Commerce Department for tariffs up to 24% and 7.7% on foreign steel and aluminum, respectively. Consumer food product giant General Mills (GIS) made a splash before the … Read more

2018 Starts Out with a Bang!


Image Shown: An ETF that measures momentum (MTUM) has done considerably better than the S&P 500 since the beginning of 2017. Among its top 5 holdings are Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Boeing (BA)—newsletter holdings that have had excellent value characteristics along the way. Visa (V) is also included in its top 10 holdings.

Even some the most bullish and optimistic investors have been surprised by the resiliency of today’s market environment. Why does it seem appropriate to remind members that the stock market doesn’t always go straight up with almost no volatility?

The New Theorem of the Stock Market

President of Investment Research Brian Nelson talks about the new theory of the stock market and explains how syllogisms developed by Noble prize winners and the largest asset managers may not accurately reflect active management at the investor level, which Nelson argues is what matters. Running time: ~15 minutes. To view Valuentum’s updated YouTube page, please see here.  Excerpts from Value and Momentum Within Stocks, Too (Valuentum) Read the paper from the beginning here (pdf).   Tickerized for stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Microsoft: A Dividend Growth Giant


Image Source: Microsoft

Microsoft is no longer a tech dinosaur. Estimates suggest it is beating Amazon at its own game. We’re huge fans of Microsoft’s free cash flow generation and balance-sheet health and what that means for the dividend. There’s not a lot to dislike about Microsoft, and while the risks are many, few company’s have a stronger business model.

Mutual Fund Tragedy, ROE, and the Time Horizon

Comparisons between growth versus value stocks may never go away, but President of Investment Research Brian Nelson explains why you should know better than to think stocks can easily be divided up as such. He talks about this, as well as the pitfalls of ROE (return on equity) and how to think about the time horizon. Running time: ~10 minutes.

Video: Quants! You’re NOT Measuring VALUE and Nelson’s Theory of Universal Value

President of Investment Research Brian Nelson defines the concept of universal value and shows how quantitative statistical methods are inextricably linked to those of fundamental, financial, business-model related analysis. Value does not exist in respective process vacuums! Value is universal. Find out why. Running time: ~10 minutes.  Tickerized for Valuentum’s stock and ETF coverage universe. Transcript Hi this is Brian Nelson from Valuentum Securities, and this is the tenth edition of a series that I call “Off the Cuff,” where I get in front of the camera and I talk for ten minutes. This is what we have to talk about today. We have to talk about this concept: The Theory of Universal Value. Value does not exist in vacuums … Read more

A “Terrible” Negative Alpha-Generating “Trade” and More

Let’s walk through some of the news before the Thanksgiving holiday, and one of the bigger missteps we made during 2017. By Brian Nelson, CFA I’d like to run through the news before many of you take a break for the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks again for your attention. It means the world to our team that you see and understand the things that we’re doing, the great calls we make with our top-weighted ideas (see here and here), the extensive valuation processes we perform with respect to the discounted cash-flow process (see here), and how we provide that in downloadable pdf form (see here) – and we’re here to talk about our expectations! You can get reports from anybody, of … Read more

How Have Our Best “Dividend Growth Ideas” Performed During 2017?

Read about the ideas in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio >> We wrote recently about how well the top-weighted ideas in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio have performed during 2017, but what about the top-weighted ideas in the other newsletter portfolio, the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio? How have they performed during 2017? Please tell us you know how well the top-weighted ideas have been performing. Key Takeaways: 1) “Excluding dividends, the SPDR S&P 500 Dividend ETF has advanced less than 9% this year. Meanwhile, excluding dividends, the two top-weighted ideas in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, Johnson & Johnson and Intel, are up ~20% and ~24%, respectively, more than double that of the SPDR S&P 500 Dividend ETF.”  2) “We’re viewing … Read more