Video: We Expect A Huge Market Flush! Looking to “Raise” Incremental Cash

Video: Valuentum’s Brian Nelson, CFA, breaks down the current market environment, highlighting reasons for the poor market sentiment driven by “tapped out” consumers and investors alike. He expects a big market “flush,” and a challenging next couple years but remains a big fan of stocks for the long haul. Valuentum continues to seek to “raise” incremental cash in the simulated newsletter portfolios as it prepares to weather the storm. Video length: ~10 minutes. –——— Tickerized for holdings in the SPY. Brian Nelson owns shares in SPY, SCHG, QQQ, DIA, VOT, BITO, and IWM. Valuentum owns SPY, SCHG, QQQ, VOO, and DIA. Brian Nelson’s household owns shares in HON, DIS, HAS, NKE. Some of the other securities written about in this … Read more

Valuentum’s Unmatched Product Suite

Hi everyone! — We continue to be huge believers in the concept of enterprise valuation, which emphasizes the key cash-based sources of intrinsic value–net cash on the balance sheet and strong and growing future expected free cash flows. Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) remain two of the most underpriced ideas on the market today, and we remain huge fans of their tremendous long-term investment prospects. — There are a couple things worth reminding readers, however. A good relevant rule of thumb I learned early in my career working for my first portfolio manager is that a stock’s return in the near term is driven roughly 40% by the market, 30% by the industry it operates in, and 30% … Read more

Nelson: I Have Been Wrong About the Prospect of Near-Term Inflationary-Driven Earnings Tailwinds

Transcript During the past several weeks, we’ve grown increasingly concerned about the health of consumer-tied entities across not only the consumer staples but also the consumer discretionary spaces. Many consumer staples entities, while raising prices, aren’t raising them fast enough to drive operating-income and bottom-line expansion, while many consumer-discretionary companies are facing higher freight and logistics costs and weaker performance in China, perhaps best revealed by Nike’s most recently-reported quarter, where inventory advanced 23% compared to the prior-year period. The tell-tale sign about the health of the consumer may be Amazon (AMZN) Prime Day, which is coming up on July 12-13, but based on many of the reports we’ve monitored this past earnings season, even if sales are strong on … Read more

Best Idea Korn Ferry Enters New Fiscal Year on a High Note

Image Shown: Best idea Korn Ferry posted a stellar fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 earnings report with several of its core financial metrics reaching all-time highs. The firm also issued out favorable near term guidance in conjunction with its latest earnings update. We continue to be huge fans of the global management consulting firm. Image Source: Korn Ferry – Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2022 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On June 22, global management consulting firm Korn Ferry (KFY) reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2022 (period ended April 30, 2022) that smashed past both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. The firm also raised its dividend 15% sequentially to $0.15 per share or $0.60 on an annualized basis in … Read more

Best Idea Korn Ferry Supported by Stellar Financials

Image Shown: Korn Ferry put up tremendous performance in the quarter ended January 2022 and provided favorable near term guidance in conjunction with its fiscal third quarter earnings update. We include Korn Ferry in our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Image Source: Korn Ferry – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2022 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan The global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry (KFY) is included in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and we continue to be huge fans of the name. Korn Ferry is a tremendous free cash flow generator with a stellar business model. The differentiated nature of its offerings provides Korn Ferry with ample pricing power, allowing it to preserve its margins in the face of major inflationary … Read more

Taiwan Semi Firing on All Cylinders

Image Source: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – First Quarter of 2022 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Semiconductor components, or “chips,” are the bedrock of the digital economy. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) operates numerous semiconductor fabrication sites all of the world, with its major manufacturing hub located in Taiwan, that produce chips utilized in all sorts of applications. Furthermore, Taiwan Semi is one of only a handful of companies capable of producing high-end chips at scale. Taiwan Semi’s business model revolves around producing chips for third-parties as the firm does not design semiconductor components itself, and the company is the largest semiconductor foundry in the world (foundries are chip fabrication sites specifically built to meet third-party needs). We are … Read more

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Image: Erica Nicol Takeaways: Junk tech should continue to collapse, but the stylistic area of large cap growth and big cap tech should remain resilient. Moderately elevated levels of inflation coupled with interest rates hovering at all-time lows isn’t a terrible combination. In fact, it’s not bad at all. The markets are digesting the huge gains of the past few years so far in 2022, and the excesses in ARKK funds, crypto, SPACs, and meme stocks are being rid from the system. Our best ideas are “outperforming” the very benchmarks that are outperforming everyone else. The BIN portfolio is down 6.4% and the DGN portfolio is down 3.2% year to date. The SPY is down 7.8%, while the average investor … Read more

Best Idea Korn Ferry Continues to Fire on All Cylinders

Image Shown: Korn Ferry, an idea in our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, reported a strong earnings report on December 8. Image Source: Korn Ferry – Second Quarter of Fiscal 2022 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On December 8, the consulting firm Korn Ferry (KFY) reported second-quarter earnings for fiscal 2022 (period ended October 31, 2021) that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Strength was seen across the board at its ‘Consulting,’ ‘Digital,’ ‘Executive Search,’ and ‘RPO and Professional Search’ business operating segments which all reported nice fee revenue growth and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Please note that RPO stands for recruitment process outsourcing. The company issued guidance for the fiscal third quarter within its latest earnings update … Read more

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds

Image Source: Terry Johnson By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ll have our traditional Valuentum Weekly email coming out on Sunday, and I’m excited to say our team is putting the finishing touches on our technology industry update, so we’ll have a whole bunch of fresh reports for you to look at Sunday evening/Monday morning. It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been through the past two years. Often, we forget how helpful the warning that markets were going to crash was the weekend before they did on February 22, 2020, “Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? – Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios,” how we thought dollar-cost-averaging made sense at the bottom in March 2020, and how we went “all-in” in April … Read more

Best Idea Korn Ferry Posts a Stellar Earnings Update

Image Shown: Shares of Korn Ferry have surged higher year-to-date, and we see room for additional capital appreciation upside. We added shares of Korn Ferry as an idea to our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio back in January 2021 and continue to be huge fans of the name. The top end of our fair value estimate range sits at $104 per share of Korn Ferry. By Callum Turcan Organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry (KFY) posted results for its first quarter of fiscal 2022 (period ended July 31, 2021) on September 8 that smashed past consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Korn Ferry commented in the earnings press release that it had generated record quarterly fee revenue, the source of the lion’s share … Read more