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

Consumer Staples Struggling with Higher Inflationary Costs, Group Hits 52-Week Lows

Image: The Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC) has notched a new 52-week low, and investors should note that we don’t think consumer staples entities are immune to an environment of higher inflation, where their price increases may not be fully absorbed by the consumer. Due to the commoditization of many of the goods produced in the consumer staples space, we think the consumer may instead trade down to off-brands or white label (“store brand”) products than pay up for branded merchandise. By Brian Nelson, CFA On June 10, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index Summary for May showing inflation continues at an elevated pace, “with the indexes for shelter, gasoline, and food being the largest … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week April 15

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending April 15. 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      Agree Realty (ADC): now $0.234 per share monthly dividend, was $0.227. Aon (AON): now $0.56 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.51. Artesian Resources (ARTNA): now $0.2729 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.2675. BrasilAgro – Brazilian Agricultural Real Estate (LND): now $0.404 per share dividend, was $0.2030. Costco (COST): now $0.90 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.79. Crestwood Equity (CEQP): now $0.655 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Weekly: Why We Missed Big on T and FB; Overpriced Staples, Our Call To Action; and More!

In this Valuentum Weekly, in video form, President of Investment Research Brian Nelson, CFA, explains why Valuentum missed big on T and FB, how volatility on names with huge market caps is spiking recklessly, and why the call to action in the book Value Trap remains as relevant as ever given current incentives. ———- Valuentum members have access to our 16-page stock reports, Valuentum Buying Index ratings, Dividend Cushion ratios, fair value estimates and ranges, dividend reports and more. Not a member? Subscribe today. The first 14 days are free.    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. … Read more

Undervalued PINS, SNAP Rallying; FB Incredibly Mispriced, and Refreshed Consumer Discretionary Reports

Image: Valuentum’s Periodic Screener, February 4.  — By Valuentum Analysts — Two of the most undervalued stocks in our coverage Pinterest, Inc. (PINS) and Snap Inc. (SNAP) are indicated to rally hard February 4 after issuing positive earnings reports, providing further evidence of the importance of the discounted cash flow process and the magnet that intrinsic value estimates are to stock prices. Pinterest is indicated up ~14%, while Snap is indicated up ~47% based on the latest information we have. — The refreshed Valuentum periodic data screener is now available for download on our website (it can be found in the ‘Stock Screens’ section in the left column of our website). The periodic data screener, which also includes updated fair value estimates on … 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

Valuentum’s Brian Nelson in CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’

From CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’: — By Brian Nelson, CFA — “I couldn’t sleep. I knew something was wrong. The numbers just didn’t make sense. For years, pipeline energy analysts seemed to be adjusting their valuation models for pipeline master limited partnership (MLP) stocks in order to explain what was happening to the price. — But why? Why adjust the models for one set of companies and not for another? Cash is cash and value is the measure of cash going into and out of a business. There aren’t different rules for different companies. Valuation is universal.” — To continue reading >> — —– — About Brian Michael Nelson, CFA Brian Michael Nelson, CFAPresident, Equity Research & ETF AnalysisE-mail: brian@valuentum.com Brian … Read more

Asset Allocators Fail, Advisors Should Pick Stocks, Save Investors $34 Billion Annually

  Image: The area of large cap growth has trounced that of the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio for more than a decade. Image Source: Morningstar. By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ve all heard the stories. Professional stock pickers can’t beat a bunch of monkeys throwing darts at the pages of the WSJ. A cows’ investment decisions are just as good as the pros’. Stock prices reflect all available information so not even professionals have an edge (e.g. the efficient markets hypothesis). Most professionals can’t outperform their respective benchmarks, so how could mom and pop? Look at this from one of today’s bloggers: The traditional argument, which you’ve probably heard many times before, goes as follows: since most people (even the professionals) can’t … Read more

The Valuentum Weekly Is a Hit! Only Delivered By Email!

Image: Excerpt from the November 14 edition of the Valuentum Weekly. November 14, 2021: Inflation Is Positive for Nominal Earnings While Interest Rates Remain at All-Time Lows Tickers mentioned: GOOG, FB, PYPL, DIS, JNJ, BRK.A, BRK.B, ASML, BYND, RIVN, TSLA, JD, WB, BABA, GE, TOSBF, Z, ZG, OPEN, RBLX, GLD November 7, 2021: Large Cap Growth Has More Room to Run Tickers mentioned: SCHG, GME, AMC, BBBY, CVX, XOM, XLE, MA, V, PYPL, QCOM, RSG, NEM, TSLA, PTON, Z, ZG, F, IWN, GMET October 31, 2021: Happy Halloween! Tickers mentioned: AAPL, AMZN, QQQ, SPY, INTC, FB, GOOG, MSFT, LMT, MVRS, DLR, XOM, CVX, DIS, SLB, HON, INTC, CMG, PYPL, PINS, TSLA, HTZZ, PTLO, RSG, SBUX, MCD, NEM, SCHG, IWN October 24, … Read more