MSFT

Why We Like Apple and Microsoft in the Newsletter Portfolios

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Image Shown: Shares of Apple Inc (blue line) and Microsoft Corporation (red line) are up significantly year-to-date as of the market close on June 19, and we see room for both shares of AAPL and MSFT to continue marching higher after recently revising our fair value estimates for both companies. By Callum Turcan On June 12, we added back shares of Apple Inc (AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) to both the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio (link here). We added Apple and Microsoft back to the newsletter portfolios using the cash position generated by removing the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) and the SPDR S&P Aerospace and Defense ETF (XAR) from the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio … Read more

The Best Years Are Ahead

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By Brian Nelson, CFA — The wind is at our backs. — The Federal Reserve, Treasury, and regulatory bodies of the U.S. may have no choice but to keep U.S. markets moving higher. The likelihood of the S&P 500 reaching 2,000 ever again seems remote, and I would not be surprised to see 5,000 on the S&P 500 before we see 2,500-3,000, if the latter may be in the cards. The S&P 500 is trading at ~4,100 at the time of this writing. — The high end of our fair value range on the S&P 500 remains just shy of 4,000, but I foresee a massive shift in long-term capital out of traditional bonds into equities this decade (and markets … Read more

Microsoft Churns Out Gobs of Free Cash Flow

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Image Shown: An overview of Microsoft Corporation’s performance last fiscal quarter. Image Source: Microsoft Corporation – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR PowerPoint Presentation By Callum Turcan On April 27, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) reported third quarter fiscal 2021 earnings (period ended March 31, 2021) that smashed past both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Revenue growth came in strong across the board. Its cloud computing Azure segment posted 50% revenue growth, its business-facing Dynamics 365 segment posted 45% revenue growth, and its consumer-facing Xbox content and services segment posted 34% revenue growth on a year-over-year basis last fiscal quarter. Though not a large part of its business, Microsoft’s digital advertising revenues also grew nicely in the fiscal third quarter. Foreign currency … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week September 17

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending September 17. 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 AFC Gamma (AFCG): now $0.43 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.38. AG Mortgage Investment Trust (MITT): now $0.21 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.07. American Financial Group (AFG): now $4.00 per share special dividend, was $2.24. American Tower (AMT): now $1.31 per share quarterly dividend, was $1.27. BIOQUAL (BIOQ): now $1.25 per share annual dividend, was $1.10. BRT Apartments (BRT): now $0.23 per share quarterly dividend, … Read more

The Impact of the US Housing Recovery Cannot Be Underestimated

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Valuentum reveals the far-reaching implications of a strengthening US housing market.

Valuentum’s Economic Roundtable: Trade War, Factors and Beyond

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Tickerized for holdings in the DIA. The markets rallied hard September 5 on relief that the US and China (FXI, MCHI) will go back to the negotiations table next month. This back-and-forth news cycle is enough to give any investor whiplash. Let’s catch up with the Valuentum Team on the latest developments, not only with the trade war but also with respect to factor investing, possible bubbles and beyond. Let’s kick things off with the following prompt from ForeignPolicy.com, released August 2: Trump Hired Robert Lighthizer to Win a Trade War. He Lost. Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, agreed to serve in President Donald Trump’s cabinet in order to test his theory: that if the United States freed itself … Read more

The Success Equation Book Review: Is the Skill Paradox a Myth in Investing? We Think So

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“If I’d just tried for them dinky singles, I could’ve batted around .600.” – Babe Ruth — “In investing, the trend toward conformity is clear. For example, portfolios today look more like their benchmarks than they did thirty years ago. The average active share, a measure of how different a mutual fund portfolio is compared to its benchmark, has fallen from 75 percent in 1980 to about 60 percent in 2010 in the United States. Leaders in sports as well as in business fear straying too far from convention, even in cases where the convention isn’t all that great (page 174).” – The Success Equation (2012) — This article was originally published October 16, 2020. — By Brian Nelson, CFA — … Read more

Nelson on Bogle, Part I

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“The kind of commentary that makes broad generalizations about expectations of future returns is exactly why people are so eager to get into passive investment strategies. Since the 1920s, it seems as though the individual investor has assumed the stock market was rigged or impossible for average Joes to figure out, but instead of the “I’ll get it next time” mentality that was present leading to the crash of ’29, individual investors have “evolved” to the point that now the idea is if you can’t beat the market, just buy the whole thing. Leaders like Bogle continue to take tremendous shortcuts in explaining forecasts, leaving the average investor like a student trying to copy math homework off a peer that … Read more