RDS

Nelson: The 16 Most Important Steps To Understand The Stock Market

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A previous version of this article appeared on our website July 21, 2013. Refreshed and updated throughout, as of July 2018. By Brian Nelson, CFA After earning my MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and training stock and credit analysts from large organizations over the past decade or so, I have heard just about every question (though I admit I am still surprised by many things and remain a very humble student of the markets). I’ve also spent years perfecting the discounted cash flow process for large research organizations such as Morningstar and studied under one of the most famed aggressive growth investors of all time, Richard Driehaus. My knowledge runs the gamut from value through … Read more

ICYMI: Exxon Mobil’s Bright Growth Outlook

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This article originally appeared on our website December 8, 2021. Image Source: Exxon Mobil Corporation – December 2021 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan At the start of December 2021, Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) laid out its longer term strategy for the 2020s decade. We are going to cover that outlook, the state of the global energy complex, Exxon Mobil’s stellar and improving financial position, and what to expect going forward. Exxon Mobil is a tremendous enterprise and one of our favorite energy names out there. Outlook Overview The company noted in its early-December update that its capital expenditures would come in around ~$20-$25 billion from 2022-2027. Its investments are focused on its operations in the Permian Basin, Guyana, Brazil, its … Read more

Valuentum’s Comprehensive Outlook for Crude Oil and Natural Gas Prices

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Let’s take a deep dive into the energy sector. The best dividend growth ideas, the most likely takeout candidates and more…

Black Gold! Crude Oil Prices Leap to ~$50

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Key Takeaways: After being negative throughout much of the collapse in energy resource prices during 2014-2015, Valuentum has been market-neutral on the energy sector since October of last year, and the newsletter portfolios have participated in the bounce in energy shares from January 2016 via the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE). The Dividend Cushion ratio, which is a forward-looking cash-flow based metric of dividend health, flagged the risk of every dividend cut, without fail, in the Independent Oil & Gas industry in advance of the event: Anadarko (APC), Cenovus (CVE), Cimarex (XEC), Devon Energy (DVN), Noble Energy (NBL), and Range Resources (RRC). We’ll walk through the degree of capital cuts across the Independent Oil & Gas industry, the group’s efforts … Read more

Don’t Follow the Social Media Likes: The Divine “Comment(y)”

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Image Source: Pilottage “Personally, it was a miserable experience for me to see things that others couldn’t.” – Nelson on Valuentum’s call preceding Kinder Morgan’s dividend cut. By Brian Nelson, CFA — A foreshadowing, a rare comment remembering Valuentum’s successful warning on Seadrill when we made our call on Kinder Morgan, June 2015. This was one of the more difficult articles for me to write. I don’t know why exactly, but the words just aren’t coming out right. Pardon me. It sounds trite, almost to the point of blasphemy, to call “The Divine Comedy” a self-help book, but that’s how Dante himself saw it. In a letter to his patron, Can Grande della Scala, the poet said that the goal … Read more

Big Energy Earnings Roundup

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Image Source: Exxon Mobil Corporation – Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan In alphabetical order by ticker: COP, CVX, RDS, TOT, XOM ConocoPhillips On October 29, upstream super-independent ConocoPhillips (COP) reported third quarter earnings for 2019. Its adjusted underlying oil and gas output rose by 7% year-over-year to over 1.3 million BOE/d in the quarter. Conoco sold off most of its UK operations (through a deal announced in April 2019), which were primarily represented by mature offshore oil and gas fields and a stake in the Clair oilfield, raising approximately $2.2 billion in net cash proceeds when the deal was completed in the third quarter. That transaction will see Conoco’s upstream output move lower sequentially in the fourth … Read more

2,350-2,750 on the S&P? Could the Coronavirus Catalyze a Financial Crisis?

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Image: We think a rather modest sell-off in the market to the target range of 2,350-2,750 on the S&P 500 is rather reasonable in the wake of one of the biggest economic shocks since the Global Financial Crisis. The chart above shows how far markets have advanced since 2011, and an adjustment lower to the target range of 2,350-2,750 is rather modest in such a context and would only bring markets to late 2018 levels (note red box as the target range). The range reflects ~16x S&P 500 12-month forward earnings estimates, as of February 14, adjusted down 10% due to COVID-19. When companies like Visa talk about a couple percentage points taken off of growth rates, one knows that … Read more

There Is Milk At The Store

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This article first appeared in the September edition of the High Yield Dividend Newsletter. For more information about this publication, please see here. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” — Winston Churchill By Brian Nelson, CFA Very few of us could have imagined that we’d witness the bull market that began on that fateful day in March 2009 that might very well mark a generational low. In 2009, major investment banks around the globe were struggling to survive, and the fallout in the mortgage markets left the banks holding paper that nobody wanted to own, let alone buy. The global financial system … Read more

Analyzing Chevron and Important Updates in the Global Energy Industry

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Image Source: Chevron Corporation – November 2019 IR Presentation Summary In this note, let’s cover the current state of raw energy resource prices in North America and around the world. We’ll analyze Chevron’s 2020 capital investment and exploration budget, in particular, and the global energy industry at-large. Shares of CVX appear generously valued as of this writing given the numerous headwinds facing the energy industry going forward. By Callum Turcan The world of oil and gas equities has been battling with persistently low raw energy resource prices for some time now. Back in the middle of 2014, a barrel of light sweet crude delivered to Cushing, Oklahoma (home of the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, benchmark), would fetch over $100. Now … Read more

Energy Sector In Shambles, Looks to Recover But Headwinds Persist

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Image Source: ConocoPhillips – November 2019 Analyst and Investor Meeting IR Presentation Executive Summary: Though raw energy resource pricing is on the rebound, the outlook for the oil and gas industry remains stressed. Global demand for oil and related refined petroleum products remains subdued due to headwinds generated by the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. The OPEC+ oil cartel has responded by pledging to keep a significant amount of oil output off the market for an extended time. However, raw energy resource prices need to go much higher and be sustained at elevated levels before the space could become attractive from a longer-term perspective. In our view, the US upstream industry (specifically those in the shale patch) need WTI to move … Read more