What’s Working in Today’s Market?

By Brian Nelson, CFA As emerging markets around the world suffer from commodity-price-led economic weakness, capital continues to find a safe-haven in US government bonds (TLT, TBT), but for those equity-oriented funds that mandate a fully-invested status, not something we’re particularly advocates of, assets within US equities have favored “lower-beta” utilities (XLU) and consumer staples (XLP) sectors while cyclically-dependent and credit-levered sectors such as the financials (XLF) and materials (XLB) have suffered thus far in 2016. The industrials (XLI) and energy (XLE) sectors have also encountered higher-than-normal selling pressure in the first few weeks of the New Year, as investors evaluate the global economic landscape and what a prolonged period of low energy prices may mean for the lowest quality … Read more

Maintaining Our Small Position in HCP

Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio holding HCP’s (HCP) shares have been under pressure as of late, and we’re not happy about it. Part of the reason we were drawn to HCP, and we posit that many others were lured by the same attribute, was that it is the only REIT that is included in the coveted S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index. At the time it was added in 2012, there were only 50 companies in all that fit the bill of 1) a market capitalization in excess of $3 billion and 2) a track record of raising their dividends in each of the past 25 years. Though HCP’s fundamental quality has deteriorated since we added it, some of the share price … Read more

ICYMI — Video: Will Hasty Policy Facilitate the Next Leg Down, or Do We Have It Coming Anyway?

President of Investment Research and award-winning author of Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation Brian Nelson explains how US policymakers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and how the market may be factoring in too high of a probability of a return to normalcy before 2021. This and more in the latest video report. Summary Make sure you review Value Trap on Amazon. Do so here. We think those that bought equities near the bottom of this swoon may be looking to take profits at present levels. The market is currently reflecting an 80%-85% probability of a return to normalcy before 2021, which we believe is too high at this time. Our main concern is that government … Read more

Jernigan Capital Fundamentally Transforms Its Business Model

Image Source: Jernigan Capital Inc – March 2020 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan Jernigan Capital Inc (JCAP) is now an internally managed real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) that invests in self-storage properties, either directly or by providing funding for developers that build such properties. Shares of JCAP currently yield ~7.8% (as of this writing) in the wake of Jernigan Capital’s stock price selling off aggressively this year, as investor concerns mounted due to the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. Jernigan Capital is in the midst of a major shift in its business model and overall corporate strategy, and we like the changes management is in the process of making. While these are still early days, plenty is already known about this … Read more

High-Yielding Crown Castle Is One of Our Favorite REITs

Image Shown: We include Crown Castle International Corp as an idea in our High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio. Image Source: Crown Castle International Corp – October 2021 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan Crown Castle International Corp (CCI) is a real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) that owns and operates cell towers, fiber networks, and small cell nodes in the US. These assets form the backbone of wireless infrastructure and are key to enabling the domestic rollout of 5G networks and supporting existing 4G networks. We include shares of CCI in our High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio as we are big fans of its strong dividend coverage (when taking its ability to tap capital markets into account), impressive growth outlook, and high-quality … Read more

Vodafone’s Dividend Cut, Alibaba’s Resilience, More Reports

Vodafone’s Dividend Cut, Alibaba’s Resilience, More Reports In alphabetical order by company name: A, BABA, PLCE, GES, M, NSANY, RL, TLRY, VOD — Good morning, — Still buying stocks immediately as they fall and on the way down? There may be no logical basis for doing so. Here’s an excerpt from Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation.  — Image: Excerpt from Value Trap, page 241 — Order your copy here.  — The market must eventually agree with you for your idea to work out, so why not wait until the stock starts to move higher first. Waiting a few weeks or a few months/quarters to see if the stock eventually settles and technical/momentum indicators start to improve is vital in helping … Read more

CyrusOne Is a High-Quality Data Center REIT

Image Shown: CyrusOne Inc’s financials and near-term growth outlook held up well during the ongoing pandemic, all things considered. Image Source: CyrusOne Inc – Second Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan One of the newest additions to our High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio is CyrusOne Inc (CONE), a data center real estate investment trust (‘REIT’). Demand for data centers has been extremely strong during the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic as employees are often working from home (driving up demand for productivity programs which in turn is driving up data consumption worldwide) while demand for data-hungry video streaming services has surged. Over the long haul, we like the outlook for the industry, and more broadly, we prefer companies … Read more

Valuentum’s June Best Ideas Newsletter

Image: Page 49, June edition of American Library Association Booklist.   By Brian Nelson, CFA — Welcome new members!   Roughly 90% of active management is underperforming their benchmarks, after fees, over the trailing 15-year period ending 2018. It’s a sad story out there. Most active investors are performing backward-looking analysis, others are using short-cut multiple analysis to make decisions; still, others may be continuing down the path of thinking that may have gotten active management in trouble in the first place: theoretical quantitative finance.   The bedrock of finance, for example, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and its beta have been shown to explain little about stock market returns, yet it is still in finance textbooks and still on key … Read more

High-Yielding Income Growth Idea Digital Realty Expects Business Will Continue Recovering

Image Shown: We are big fans of Digital Realty Trust Inc’s global footprint. Image Source: Digital Realty Trust Inc – Fourth Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On February 17, Digital Realty Trust Inc (DLR) reported fourth quarter 2021 earnings that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates, though its near term guidance came in a tad softer than expected. The data center real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) is facing headwinds from vintage leases rolling off and concerns about surging power costs around the world. On the plus side, Digital Realty is experiencing decent growth at the part of its business where re-leasing terms have been more favorable, and its contracts generally include provisions that allow the … Read more