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All I Want for Christmas Are Dividend Aristocrats

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Image Source: Five Furlongs It may not be as catchy as Mariah Carey’s Christmas hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” but if you ask a dividend growth investor what they might want for Christmas as it relates to an investment, they might start singing about a long list of Dividend Aristocrats–a list of companies that have increased their dividends in each of the past 20-25+ years. Therefore, we wanted to do something special this Christmas for members. We’ve aggregated a list of every non-financial Dividend Aristocrat in our 16-page stock report coverage universe and made a list conveniently available below, including some key data and links directly to their 16-page stock reports (pdf). To access the 16-page stock … Read more

Walking Through the Calculation of the Dividend Cushion Ratio

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A cow for her milk, A hen for her eggs, And a stock, by heck, For her dividends. An orchard for fruit, Bees for their honey, And stocks, besides, For their dividends. – John Burr Williams, “The Theory of Investment Value” (1938) Executive Summary: We believe the Dividend Cushion ratio is one of the most helpful tools an income or dividend growth investor can use in conjunction with qualitative dividend analysis. The ratio is one-of-a-kind in that it is both free-cash-flow based, considers balance sheet health, and is forward looking. Since its development in 2012, we estimate its efficacy at ~90% in helping to forewarn readers of impending dividend cuts. For companies where Valuentum reports are available, the Dividend Cushion ratio can be found in a stock’s Dividend … Read more

Realty Income Remains Resilient and Its Outlook is Improving

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Image Shown: An overview of Realty Income Corporation’s asset base and historical financial performance. Image Source: Realty Income Corporation – Third Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On November 2, Realty Income Corporation (O) posted third quarter earnings for 2020 that saw the real estate investment trust’s (‘REIT’) funds from operations (‘FFO’) come in flat year-over-year at $0.82 per share, while its adjusted funds from operations (‘AFFO’) declined by 2% year-over-year, hitting $0.81 per share. Realty Income invests in single-tenant commercial properties, and its business has faced headwinds from the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. However, things are starting to improve, though there is ample room for additional improvement. We like the relative resilience of Realty Income’s financials … Read more

Digital Realty’s Momentum Continues, Raises Outlook

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Image Shown: An overview of Digital Realty Trust Inc’s asset base. Image Source: Digital Realty Trust Inc – Third Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On October 29, the data center real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) Digital Realty Trust Inc (DLR) reported third quarter 2020 earnings that beat consensus revenue estimates and consensus funds from operations (‘FFO’) estimates. Please note that while FFO is an imperfect metric, particularly because it does not incorporate the REIT-in-question’s need to refinance maturing debt and tap capital markets for funds for growth, it provides a useful snapshot of how well the REIT-in-question can maintain its dividend in the near term. Digital Realty posted $1.54 per share in core FFO last quarter … Read more

ICYMI — Dividend Growth Strategies Struggle

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Image: A large cap growth ETF (orange) has significantly outperformed an ETF tied to a dividend growth strategy, the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY), which mirrors the total return performance of the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. — By Brian Nelson, CFA — To no surprise to many members, several dividend growth strategies have faced tremendous pressure during 2020. The Journal recently wrote a piece on the topic, but from our perspective, the problem with many dividend growth strategies is that they tend to be balance-sheet agnostic and pay little attention to traditional free cash flow expectations, focusing only on the yield itself, sometimes dismissing future fundamentals in favor of historical growth trends and the inferior EPS-based dividend payout ratio. — In many dividend-targeted … Read more

Crown Castle Continues to Shine

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Image Shown: Crown Castle International Corp.’s growth trajectory continued in the third quarter of 2020. Image Source: Crown Castle International Corp. – Third Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Crown Castle International Corp. (CCI)–3.3% yield (as of this writing)–is a real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) that owns 40,000+ cell towers, ~70,000 small cell nodes (on air or under contract) and ~80,000 route miles of fiber that support numerous networking operations all across the US. We include shares of Crown Castle as a holding in our High Yield Dividend Newsletter given its ability to generate sizable free cash flows even after investing heavily in expanding its asset base. From 2017 to 2019, Crown Castle generated ~$0.75 billion in … Read more

Global Net Lease’s Yield Is Flashing Signs of Trouble

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Image Shown: An overview of Global Net Lease’s asset base. Image Source: Global Net Lease – Second Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Global Net Lease (GNL) is a real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) focused on single tenant net-leased commercial properties in the US, Canada, and Europe. Sale and leaseback transactions are a common way the REIT grows its business. At the end of June 2020, a little less than two thirds of its annualized rental income came from properties in the US and Canada. Global Net Lease generated a little less than half of its annualized rental income from both office properties and industrial/distribution properties, with the remainder coming from retail properties. Shares of GNL yield … Read more

Great Day in the Markets!

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Image: The Invesco QQQ Trust, an exchange-traded fund based on the NASDAQ 100 index, had a great day during the trading session October 12, as it leads all major indexes on the year.  — By Brian Nelson, CFA — First of all, a warm welcome to our new members. We recently posted a website overview video on our website here, and please be sure to view our stock report walk-through . At Valuentum, we’re financial publishers, so please be sure to read through how many members use our services here. — The trading session October 12 was a sight to see. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.88%, the S&P 500 jumped 1.64%, while the NASDAQ powered ahead an incredible 2.56%. As many of our … Read more

Dividend Growth Selection in a Low Yield Environment

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Dear members: — John Burr Williams’ historical work The Theory of Investment Value, published in 1938, set the foundation for the widely known discounting mechanism inherent within equity valuation frameworks today. His text is often credited with the origins of the dividend discount model. Though Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation identifies enterprise valuation, or the discounted cash flow model (the free cash flow to the firm model, to be precise) as the causal driver of values and prices, the concepts are very similar. Stock values and prices are a function of future expectations. — Today, with highly accommodative Fed and Treasury policy, interest rates are ultra-low, and even yields on junk-rated debt have plummeted. For example, Ball Corp (BLL), a junk-rated credit (jargon … Read more

3 Lessons in Portfolio Management Over 10 Years

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Dear members: — We’re finally getting a pause in the rapid ascent of the markets on September 3rd. Though headlines may look scary and momentum/volatility investors could start to pile on to the downside, a modest retracement is actually a good thing. We continue to focus on the long haul with our processes, and we’re viewing the sell-off as profit taking, for the most part. — In the near term, the markets will also have to digest some speculators betting on mean reversion between “value” (cyclical) versus “growth” (secular), but we maintain the view that the value-versus-growth conversation is largely nonsense (see block quotes below), and mean reversion is something akin to the gamblers’ fallacy, in my humble opinion. Investors should also continue … Read more