Shares of Disney are Now Surging Towards the Top End of Our Fair Value Estimate Range

Image Shown: Shares of The Walt Disney Company are steadily climbing towards the top end of our fair value estimate range, which sits at $153 per share of DIS. By Callum Turcan After the market closed on November 12, The Walt Disney Company (DIS) reported its fourth quarter and full-year earnings for fiscal 2020 (period ended October 3, 2020). Its latest results beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Though Disney’s financials took a big hit from the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic, as expected (with an eye towards the enormous headwinds facing its ‘Parks, Experiences and Products’ business segment), the company’s outlook has improved considerably as its various video streaming services continue to outperform. We include shares of Disney in our … Read more

Disney Is One Of Our Favorite Streaming Companies

Image Shown: Shares of The Walt Disney Company continue to recover from the pandemic-induced crash in March 2020. By Callum Turcan One of our favorite companies with significant exposure to the video streaming arena is the entertainment behemoth The Walt Disney Company (DIS). The company’s various streaming services include ESPN+, Disney+, Hulu, among others. On October 12, Disney announced a major restructuring which effectively reorganized several of its business operating segments around supporting its video streaming ambitions, with an eye towards ensuring sizable investments in original content would be put towards good use. Overview of Disney’s Historical Video Streaming Performance To set the stage, let us first cover Disney’s historical performance to highlight why we view the company’s growth outlook … Read more

Our Thoughts on Netflix’s Latest Earnings

Image Shown: An overview of Netflix Inc’s historical financial and operational performance and a snapshot of its outlook for the fourth quarter of 2020. Image Source: Netflix Inc – Letter to shareholders covering the third quarter of 2020.  By Callum Turcan On October 20, the video streaming giant Netflix Inc (NFLX) reported third quarter 2020 earnings after the market close that underwhelmed lofty investor expectations and saw shares of NFLX move lower the next day. We recently updated our cash flow models for the Discretionary Spending industry, and our current fair value estimate for NFLX sits at $488 per share, near where Netflix is trading as of this writing (Netflix’s latest 16-page Stock Report can be viewed here). The recent … Read more

June Dividend Growth Newsletter & Intrinsic Value Investing

“But how, you will ask, does one decide what [stocks are] “attractive”? Most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: “value” and “growth,”…We view that as fuzzy thinking…Growth is always a component of value [and] the very term “value investing” is redundant.“  —                — Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual report, 1992 — By Brian Nelson, CFA — To add our new options commentary to your membership, please register here ($500/year). — Hi everyone!  — We remain unequivocally bullish on the markets and intrinsic value investing. We believe value today rests within companies that have strong net cash positions (all cash less short- and long-term debt) and solid expected future free cash flows … Read more

Netflix Misses Net Subscriber Growth Estimates, Shares Plummet

By Callum Turcan Shares of Netflix Inc (NFLX) were crushed during the trading session July 18 after the video streaming company posted second-quarter 2019 earnings. The big miss in its net subscriber additions was the main reason why. The company added 2.7 million net paying subscribers to its ranks during the quarter (way below guidance calling for 5.0 million), bringing its total paid subscriber count to 151.6 million worldwide at the end of the second quarter. That’s along with 6.1 million free trial accounts, which could be viewed as a growth pipeline considering some, but not all, of those subscribers will likely become paying members. Most see the big miss on net subscriber additions as the key culprit behind Netflix’s … Read more

Disney’s Mixed Report, Stamps Implodes, and Astronics for the Radar, More Reports

Disney’s Mixed Report, Stamps Implodes, and Astronics for the Radar, More Reports — In alphabetical order by ticker symbol: ATRO, DIS, ETSY, GDOT, NYT, PBPB, ROKU, STMP, SVMK, TPR, TVTY — Astronics (ATRO): We are strongly considering one of our favorite small-cap aerospace suppliers after a solid showing during its first quarter, results released May 8. If you may recall, Astronics was a winner in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio in the past, and even with Boeing on the skids given 737 MAX crashes, we’re not shying away from considering aerospace supply-chain exposure, given the massive backlogs at the airframe makers. Astronics’ sales advanced more than 16% in the quarter, and it registered its fifth consecutive quarter of record aerospace revenue. … Read more

Apple Surging — Your Competition Is News-Driven and Failing

No change to simulated newsletter portfolios. Clarification: On March 15, we sent out an alert for the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio removing Novartis (NVS) and adding to the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV), the latter now in the 5.5%-7.5% weighting bands, a combination of its prior weighting and the new additional weighting. By Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA Whether it’s the 24-7 business news channel or the up-to-the-millisecond charting functionality that is causing it, your competition is news-driven. For example, we often receive a lot of questions on stocks at the time when they are falling precipitously. This is not the time to do the homework. It could simply be because the investor is holding the stock and wants an update, … Read more

Shopping for Income Within Retail in a Digital World

Image Source: Mike Mozart The 2017 holiday shopping season has shown that e-commerce has never been stronger and it will only continue to grow. But there is still potential for income generation among more traditional retailers. Investors must be tremendously discerning in this area, however, as margin, and ultimately free cash flow, pressures remain prevalent. We like Walmart, Target, Costco as income ideas in retail, but TJX Companies and Best Buy may be worth a look. We’re avoiding the department stores and teen retail like the plague, regardless of their Dividend Cushion ratios. By Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA What an incredible time we’re living in. For those that study history, the US’ pressure on other countries like China … Read more

Stock Market Outlook for 2021

By Valuentum Analysts February 8, 2021 2020 was one for the history books. We covered our thoughts and reflections on the past year in our “2020 Won’t Soon Be Forgotten” article (link here), and now we are looking towards the future. Global health authorities should be able to bring an end to the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic sooner than many had expected as several vaccines have already been improved for emergency use and several others appear increasingly likely to get approved. Global vaccine distribution activities are currently underway, and this should allow the world to slowly return to pre-pandemic activities. Before then, immense stimulus measures launched primarily in developed nations should support global economic activities until the public health crisis … Read more

VBI Ratings Not as Impressive As We Would Have Liked in 2022

Image: How the VBI rating system has ranked equities so far this year. By Brian Nelson, CFA At Valuentum, we use the Valuentum Buying Index (VBI) to source ideas into diversified simulated newsletter portfolios, and the VBI may be most applicable to the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, where we generally like to include ideas when they register a high VBI rating and remove them when they register a low VBI rating. We always use the VBI in a portfolio setting and never by itself. But what about the Valuentum Buying Index ratings, themselves? How did they “perform” during 2022 in one of the worst years for stock market investors in history? Well, not as spectacular as we would have … Read more