PEP

Markets Up Big; Upside Volatility

by

Image shown: The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) since August 2017. The index has broken through support and is now bouncing back to resistance. By Brian Nelson, CFA Good morning everyone, Are you watching these markets? This is incredible. The Dow finished down 660 points yesterday (briefly dropping 700 points), and today, the Dow is currently trading up 600 points at the time of this writing. Granted, there was Apple’s (AAPL) poor first-quarter 2019 guidance yesterday and the strong jobs report today, but this volatility is not “normal,” no matter what others are saying. A couple announcements up front. For those that already ordered our book Value Trap, I will send you the pdf download to your email address just to make sure … Read more

Brace for More Volatility

by

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

by

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

by

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

In the News: Pot, Pop, and Pricing Wars

by

By Kris Rosemann The Growing Pot Market As the number of states legalizing recreational marijuana continues to grow, investor interest in the space continues to rise and the public stigma around the substance continues to fall. According to a recent RBC note, roughly 83% of Americans believe marijuana should be legal in some capacity, suggesting further decriminalization and/or outright legalization is likely to take place in coming years, a notion supported by Canada’s recent nationwide legalization. RBC also estimates that legal marijuana sales in the US will grow at a 17% compound annual growth rate over the next decade to approximately $47 billion in legal annual sales. Current recreational sales of marijuana in the US, both legal and illegal, are … Read more

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

by

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

Study: Valuentum’s Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio

by

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

We Said Consumer Staples Would Underperform

by

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

ICYMI: Valuentum’s Improved Stock and ETF Web Pages

by

Valuentum has rolled out improved stock and ETF web pages on its website valuentum.com/. Now, subscribers can access key proprietary information on the stock and ETF web pages in addition to the customary stock and ETF reports. Dear reader, We have some exciting news that we can’t wait to share with you! At valuentum.com/, we have rolled out new stock and ETF pages that conveniently include a variety of our proprietary metrics from the Dividend Cushion ratio to the Economic Castle rating and beyond! There’s even mouseover functionality so you can learn about how we define the key metrics across our stock-selection and dividend growth methodologies. You’ll still have access to the stock and dividend reports on the landing pages, … Read more

Trump Targets China with Tariffs

by

Image: Shanghai, China (December 2016), Andrey Filippov Stock markets in the US are slowly building in the prospect of retaliation (a “trade war”) from China, as a result of President Trump’s new tariffs. We maintain our view that the stock market has been frothy for some time, and the recent volatility may just be the beginning of a reversion to normalized valuations, with or without concerns about global trade. By Brian Nelson, CFA The market may be using concerns about a “trade war” as a reason to sell overpriced stock. According to Factset, as of March 16, the forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is still over 17 times, one turn more than the 5-year average and nearly … Read more