VRNT

2019: Another Market Beating Year for the Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio!

by

2019: Another Market Beating Year for the Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio! — Summary: — We estimate thus far the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio return has beat the S&P 500 by 2.8 percentage points during 2019 (34.4% versus 31.6% for the S&P 500, as measured by the SPY). — Our move to overweight Apple, Facebook, and Visa worked out wonderfully for members during 2019. We continue to overweight big winners, and we credit this to our team’s conviction in our very best ideas. —  We also made quite the savvy move in rolling over a solid gain in Chipotle (60%+) into even more shares of Apple stock during the year. We’re putting some of the best ideas right in front of … Read more

We’ve Dropped Coverage of the Business Services Industry

by

Image Source: Franz Conde Structure of the Business Services Industry Firms in the business services space primarily focus on management consulting, technology/data-integration services/software and outsourcing solutions. Participants generate high returns on invested capital, but the business services marketplace is very competitive, and firms can often face pressure from off-shore service providers in lower-cost locations (India, Philippines and China). Such competition may inhibit firms’ ability to obtain sufficient pricing for services, and economic conditions may hinder the capability of clients to pay for such services. Still, we’re generally neutral on the group. We’ve dropped coverage of the Business Services industry.

Hold ‘em or Fold ‘em?

by

Let’s talk Cardinal Health, Hanesbrands, Ford and Verint in this piece. Our best ideas are ideas in the newsletter portfolios. Unlike other widely followed strategies, the Valuentum strategy likes to capture the entire pricing cycle on an idea. We don’t “operate” in ideas only below the ‘undervalued’ line, but we like to let our winners run to when they are overvalued and showing signs of technical/momentum deterioration. By Brian Nelson, CFA The most important quality of a Valuentum investor is patience. Once we add an idea to the newsletter portfolios, we don’t remove it once it starts to approach the lower bounds of the fair value estimate range. We generally don’t remove it at our fair value estimate either, and … Read more

When We Get It “Wrong” — How To Think About Our Methodology In Action

by

When We Get It “Wrong” — How To Think About Our Methodology In Action Image: Chipotle (CMG) was one of our best calls in 2019.   Image: Verint (VRNT) was a controversial idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio that worked out great for members this year.   Image: Visa (V) has been the top-weighted idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter for as long as we can remember. In December 2017, when we migrated to weighting ranges for ideas in the newsletter portfolio, the company’s “weight” was 8.6%. The image above shows its performance relative to the S&P 500 (SPY) since then. Source (pdf). — Let’s talk about the newsletter portfolios, some areas where we’ve made mistakes, and how some members use our services. … Read more

Best Idea Verint Surges — Another Fortunate Call

by

Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio idea Verint (VRNT) surged after it reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings after the close March 27. The company was added to the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio April 2017. It was a controversial idea, but it is paying off big time! This article was sent to members via email March 27. Note: The Financial Advisor Level member publications will be released April 15. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everyone, I wrote up a rather long email today. You can access that email here. One of our best ideas, Verint (VRNT) is surging. If you recall, this was quite the controversial name, but we stuck with it, and it is paying off nicely.  The stock is rallying on upside first-quarter … Read more

Outperformance No Matter How You Measure It

by

Image shown: The performance of Valuentum’s simulated Best Ideas Newsletter since the inaugural edition of the newsletter, July 13, 2011. We migrated to a weighting range format for the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio ideas beginning in 2018. At that time, Visa (V) was the top weighting by far at 8.6%. Shares of Visa have soared since, and other ideas haven’t been too shabby either! Source. Valuentum’s Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio is in a class by itself. Did you know that ~90% of active fund managers are underperforming their benchmarks over prolonged periods of time? The lack of volatility of the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio had been driven by its massive average cash “weighting” of 25% during its history, something we … Read more

It Definitely Is a *Best* Ideas Newsletter!

by

Image shown: Valuentum migrated to a weighting range format for the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio ideas beginning in 2018. This article was sent to members via email March 15. By Brian Nelson, CFA I was on social media the other day, and somebody was asking whether there would be more engagement/likes/appreciation from a picture of a cat than if someone were to put up great stock picks year after year. I think the poll came back in favor of the cat pictures! It’s an interesting time, and investors are tuning out great research because they simply don’t know what to listen to. They don’t know the real deal, and that’s why writing Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation was so important. It’s … Read more

MLPs Starting to Adopt Free Cash Flow?

by

Image shown: Since mid-June 2015, the price of an ETF tracking the midstream MLP energy space (AMLP) has fallen more than 40% while the S&P 500 (SPY) has rallied more than 30%. No changes to simulated newsletter portfolios. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everyone! Hope you are having a nice start to the week. I have some great news for investors. In my lengthy piece from last Tuesday, which can read here, I talked about how master limited partnerships (MLPs) may be starting to embrace the very important metric free cash flow. If you remember, free cash flow is generally calculated as cash flow from operations less allcapital spending.  On the other hand, distributable cash flow, or the most widely-disseminated metric across midstream equities, generally excludes growth capital … Read more

New 10s! — Stock Report Updates — Triage During Market Volatility

by

We have updated our 16-page equity and dividend reports for a number of high-profile companies in our coverage universe and have provided a table summarizing the new fair value estimates, Dividend Cushion ratios, and other key metrics following the updates for your convenience. By Valuentum Analysts We’ve been actively updating select reports through the course of this market swoon, and we have provided the table above for your convenience.  Guess what — Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) are now registering 10s on the Valuentum Buying Index again! These two companies are also the highest weighted equities in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. There’s a lot of “hair” on both names, given political and regulatory risks, and both may experience … Read more

Valuentum Stock Screeners

by

This article was sent to members via email December 29. That email can be accessed at the link that follows this article. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everyone, I wanted to provide an update with respect to Valuentum’s stock screeners. We believe our stock screeners are among the most robust when it comes to providing forward-looking data, or data that is important with respect to the investment decision-making process. We publish screens in each of the monthly newsletters, but we also provide a basic weekly screener for download on the left column of the website, “Download Weekly Stock Screener (xls) — login required.”   We also have other products. The more robust DataScreener, for example, is part of the quarterly Financial … Read more