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Earnings Insight – Visa

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Image source: Visa Let’s cover some ground on Visa’s (V) calendar third-quarter report, its fiscal fourth-quarter release. What management said: “We continue to deliver healthy earnings growth in the face of continued, but abating headwinds. We have begun to see the benefits from our acquisition of Visa Europe and strong cost discipline helped our results. At the same time, we are unwavering in our commitment to invest in client partnership opportunities and the further build out of our digital payments capabilities,” said Charlie Scharf, Chief Executive Officer of Visa Inc. “As we enter fiscal 2017, we are positioned well as revenue headwinds will continue to ease, we will continue to see the benefits from Visa Europe in our results, and … Read more

Currency: Cases in Probabilistic Thinking

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The rally in the Mexican peso relative to the US dollar during the first Trump-Clinton debate of 2016 showcased the increased likelihood of a Clinton victory, in light of Trump’s current political agenda. Instances like this, where currency markets serve to act as a probability indicator of the likelihood of a future event, have occurred through the course of history, the most fasinating of which happened during the American Civil War and with Confederate scrip specifically. Image Source: Bloomberg, “Mexican Peso Gives Clearest Signal Trump Lost Debate“ By Brian Nelson, CFA At Valuentum, we talk a lot about how markets act as “discounting” mechanisms of the probability of future events, and more specifically as it relates to stocks, how a … Read more

Brexit: Secession Bells Are Ringing!

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First Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C., where the first secession convention in the United States opened on Dec. 17, 1860. Source: Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Photo. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 24 Jun. 2016. Global markets are plunging, and the implosion may still be in the early innings. Market valuations remain stretched among stagnant global economic growth, and “Brexit” may be the catalyst for a correction. In the paraphrased words of the well-known The Day of the Jackal author, Frederick Forsyth: the peasants have spoken. On June 23, the UK (EWU) held a referendum, in which anyone of voting age could take part, to decide whether the country should leave the European Union. The turnout was incredible at nearly 72%, and … Read more

ICYMI: 5 Concerns About Impending Rate Hikes

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The first Fed rate hike in nearly a decade came and went December 16, putting an environment of ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) to an end, a policy that grew out of the Financial Crisis and the depths of the Great Recession late last decade. The Fed had paused plans to hike the federal funds rate for much of 2015 as a result, in our view, of getting a more informed read on the potential implications of emerging market developments–namely dislocations in the local Chinese equity markets (FXI) and recessionary conditions in Brazil (EWZ)–and the stock market crash (SPY) in the US in August that sent equities of some of the most well-known stocks including Apple (AAPL) and General Electric … Read more

When “Bad” News Is “Good” News…Take A Euro Trip?

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Pack the bags, kiss the grandkids, it’s time to do some traveling!!! Maybe to Europe? From a global perspective, for those whose wealth and income is generated in US dollars, you can arguably buy more with one US dollar today than at any other time in the past 12 years, according to a popular index that measures the value of the dollar versus a basket of other currencies. Expectations are being ratcheted up for impending interest rate hikes by the Fed, and this means that assets are flying into US greenbacks from all over the world. The dollar is strengthening against the euro, the pound, the loonie, the aussie, the rand, and the list goes on and on. This decade … Read more

Volatility Spikes, Oh Cisco, the Mighty US Dollar, and More

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Image Source: CBOE Let’s talk about recent market events May 17. There’s a lot going on. By Brian Nelson, CFA It looks like volatility is back in a big way, with “all 29 volatility indexes at the CBOE ris(ing) today,” one more-than-doubling, the CBOE Short-Term Volatility Index (VXST). The ridiculously-named “fear gauge” or “fear index” or the CBOE Volatility Index, the VIX (VIX) leapt nearly 50%. On May 17, we effectively bought volatility intraday by adding put options to the newsletter portfolios, both on the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) and Netflix, a company whose valuation we think remains ridiculous. We may continue to add put options on entities whose equity prices we believe have become too stretched, positions that may … Read more