TSLA

Nice! — NASDAQ-100 Follows Through on Breakout

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Image: NASDAQ-100 breaks through August 2022 resistance. NOW READ: There Are No Free ‘Income’ Lunches ———- It’s Here!  The Second Edition of Value Trap! Order today!   —– Tickerized for holdings in the QQQ. Brian Nelson owns shares in SPY, SCHG, QQQ, DIA, VOT, BITO, RSP, and IWM. Valuentum owns SPY, SCHG, QQQ, VOO, and DIA. Brian Nelson’s household owns shares in HON, DIS, HAS, NKE, DIA, and RSP. Some of the securities written about in this article may be included in Valuentum’s simulated newsletter portfolios. Contact Valuentum for more information about its editorial policies.         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 … Read more

ICYMI: How Big Is Your “Too Hard” Bucket?

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Dear members: — I wrote a note about the role of luck in investing, and luck is certainly not to be underestimated when it comes to the long-term success of a company. Even minor changes in the history of the path of successful companies would have relegated them to mere footnotes in the annals of time. — Amazon (AMZN), as probably the best example, may not have made it past the dot-com bust without some timely financing just before the dot-com crash in 2000, while other companies may have looked a whole lot different today had just a few things not gone their way, from Apple (AAPL) to Meta Platforms (META) to Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and beyond. — In investing, it’s okay to … Read more

Meta’s Free Cash Flow Generation Has Returned, But TikTok Has Permanently Changed the Competitive Landscape

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Image: Meta Platforms’ free cash flow has bounced back a bit, but the firm’s top-line growth remains challenged as it transitions away from a secular growth powerhouse into a cyclical story with encroaching competition. Image Source: Meta Platforms By Brian Nelson, CFA As we outlined in our introductory note in the February edition of the Dividend Growth Newsletter (pdf), the Federal Reserve is slowing its pace of benchmark rate increases as signs of inflation start to slow. Though there may still be pockets of input cost pressures, particularly with respect to prices at the pump and food-at-home expenses, for the most part, the negative wealth effect from falling asset prices around the globe is successfully working itself through the system. … Read more

Market-Cap Weighted S&P 500 Breaks Out; Have We Already Seen the Bottom?

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Image: The market-cap weighted S&P 500 (SPY) has broken through its downtrend. The markets could be headed meaningfully higher. Image Source: TradingView By Brian Nelson CFA Excess savings in consumer bank accounts from the pandemic stimulus and government intervention that was issued during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic will start to deplete almost entirely by the middle of this year. Talk of the debt ceiling on the U.S.’s national debt of $31.5 trillion is emerging, and interest on the debt will start to crowd out other spending with respect to the national budget. The markets, however, are forward looking, and many of these concerns are largely “baked in.” Within the discounted cash-flow model, for example, we take into consideration … Read more

Our Reports on Stocks in the Discretionary Spending Industry

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Dividend Yield: Estimated on a forward-looking annualized basis. VBI: The Valuentum Buying Index, a timeliness indicator that overlays a price-to-fair-value estimate consideration. Fair Value Estimate: Derived by Valuentum’s enterprise valuation process. Dividend Cushion ratio: A ratio assessing the health of the dividend (the higher, the better). Data as of the date of this article. Individual company reports may have been updated subsequent to the publishing of this article, so please download a company’s stock and dividend report for its latest information and data. Note: The data in the tables of each of the below companies’ respective stock pages is updated the weekend after the publishing of this update. Please click on a company name below to view the corresponding equity … Read more

Don’t Let “Them” Spin the Narrative

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By Brian Nelson, CFA Let’s call it how it is: 2022 was an absolute nightmare for the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio. During the year, the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio was down 16.9%, according to data from the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund Shares (VBIAX). During 2022, the S&P 500 (SPY) index was down 18.2%, meaning that the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, despite allocating to 40% bonds, captured over 90% of the downside risk. Modern portfolio theory is dead: Stocks have done far better than bonds during upswings, and only slightly worse during downturns. The risk/reward for the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio just doesn’t add up anymore. Bond prices did not move inversely to stock prices during the COVID-19 meltdown, and they did not move inversely … Read more

We’re Glad Microsoft Sees Promise in ChatGPT

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Image Source: Mike Mozart By Brian Nelson, CFA Not having to worry about an upstart taking ChatGPT to the finish line is a big relief for the newsletter portfolios. Having already invested $1 billion in ChatGPT’s owner OpenAI in 2019, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) may invest as much as $10 billion more in the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Reports indicate that Microsoft would own a 49% stake in OpenAI, while getting a 75% share of OpenAI’s earnings. The greater control over ChatGPT, of which we brought to readers attention in our December 5 note, “Maintaining Our Fair Value Estimates Across Ad-Driven Social Media Equities In Light of Long Term AI-Driven Chatbot Threats,” will likely augment Microsoft’s search technology and its web … Read more

These Things Sometimes Take Time

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Image: The QQQ, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, including Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft has been a tremendous generator of wealth. Image Source: TradingView By Brian Nelson, CFA After the huge collapse in the markets in 2020, and the huge rebound in 2021, followed by a large retracement in 2022, we think things are going to be boring in 2023. They are likely going to be so boring that many investors will lose interest at the exact time that they should be most interested–when markets are well off their highs and uncertainty is near its peak.  Dollar Cost Averaging Dollar cost averaging is among the most powerful drivers behind long-term returns. Measuring returns from prior peak to prior peak is often … Read more

5 Top Stock Ideas for 2023!

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By Brian Nelson, CFA With 2022 almost in the rear-view mirror, investors are expecting continued weakness into 2023. Millionaires are as bearish as they have been since the beginning of 2008, and we all know what happened during that year. Inflationary pressures coupled with substantially weakened consumer spending as a result of the collapse in the price of cryptocurrencies, traditional asset allocation models such as the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, and ultra-high yielding stocks with payouts north of 9%-10% have most investors worried about what might be ahead in 2023. Still, investors have reason to be hopeful, in our view. The labor markets continue to hold up well, and the rate hikes that have pummeled equity, bond and real estate prices … Read more

Exclusive Call: What To Expect From Valuentum in 2023

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Video: 2022 was a successful year by almost every measure from the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio to the simulated High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio and Exclusive publication and beyond. There were some disappointments in 2022, of course, but the year showed the value of a Valuentum membership. Join President of Investment Research Brian Nelson on this year’s Exclusive conference call to learn what to expect from Valuentum in 2023. Cheers! Transcript President of Investment Research Brian Nelson: Happy Holidays everyone! I hope that you are enjoying this special time of year with family and friends, and I wish you all a wonderful 2023! I just wanted to take a few minutes to recap … Read more