WMT

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

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Image: Erica Nicol Takeaways: Junk tech should continue to collapse, but the stylistic area of large cap growth and big cap tech should remain resilient. Moderately elevated levels of inflation coupled with interest rates hovering at all-time lows isn’t a terrible combination. In fact, it’s not bad at all. The markets are digesting the huge gains of the past few years so far in 2022, and the excesses in ARKK funds, crypto, SPACs, and meme stocks are being rid from the system. Our best ideas are “outperforming” the very benchmarks that are outperforming everyone else. The BIN portfolio is down 6.4% and the DGN portfolio is down 3.2% year to date. The SPY is down 7.8%, while the average investor … Read more

Valuentum’s Brian Nelson in CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’

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From CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’: — By Brian Nelson, CFA — “I couldn’t sleep. I knew something was wrong. The numbers just didn’t make sense. For years, pipeline energy analysts seemed to be adjusting their valuation models for pipeline master limited partnership (MLP) stocks in order to explain what was happening to the price. — But why? Why adjust the models for one set of companies and not for another? Cash is cash and value is the measure of cash going into and out of a business. There aren’t different rules for different companies. Valuation is universal.” — To continue reading >> — —– — About Brian Michael Nelson, CFA Brian Michael Nelson, CFAPresident, Equity Research & ETF AnalysisE-mail: brian@valuentum.com Brian … Read more

General Mills Managing Inflationary Headwinds; Scaling Up Pets Business

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Image Source: General Mills Inc – Second Quarter of Fiscal 2022 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On December 21, General Mills Inc (GIS), the firm behind the Cheerios, Pillsbury, and Nature Valley brands (among various others), reported second quarter earnings for fiscal 2022 (period ended November 28, 2021) that beat consensus top-line estimates but missed consensus bottom-line estimates. The consumer staples giant also raised its full year guidance for fiscal 2022 in conjunction with its latest earnings report. In the face of major input cost inflationary pressures and supply chain constraints, brought on in part by the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic and the fiscal/monetary policies enacted to offset the economic damage caused by the public health crisis, General Mills has … Read more

Kroger Beats Estimates and Once Again Raises Guidance

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Image Source: Kroger Co – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Kroger Co (KR) recently reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended November 6, 2021) that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates, and the retailer also once again boosted its full-year guidance for fiscal 2021. Kroger’s operations include retail store brands such as City Market, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyers, Metro Market, and more, along with its private label brands of consumer staples offerings. Shares of KR have shifted meaningful higher since its latest earnings update as of this writing. Earnings Update In fiscal 2020 (period ended January 30, 2021), Kroger put up banner performance due in large part to the “panic” … Read more

Tyson’s Pricing Strength Enables Margin Expansion During Turbulent Time

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Image Shown: Tyson Foods Inc put up stellar results for fiscal 2021. Image Source: Tyson Foods Inc – Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On November 15, Tyson Foods Inc (TSN) reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended October 2, 2021) that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates largely due to the firm’s impressive pricing strength, the focus of this article. The company is facing major headwinds from the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic, from labor shortages to supply chain bottlenecks to rising input costs, though Tyson has adeptly navigated this turbulence while bolstering both its revenues and its margins. For reference, please note that Tyson’s fiscal year ends around late-September or early October. … Read more

Shares of Dividend Growth Idea Home Depot Roar Higher After Latest Earnings Update

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Image Shown: Shares of dividend growth idea Home Depot Inc have surged higher year-to-date on the back of the home improvement retailer’s stellar operational performance and impressive free cash flow generating abilities. We liked what we saw in Home Depot’s latest earnings report published on November 16. By Callum Turcan On November 16, Home Depot Inc (HD) reported earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 (period ended October 31, 2021) that smashed past both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Shares of HD are up ~48% year-to-date (before taking dividend considerations into account) as of the end of normal trading hours on November 16 after shares surged higher by ~6% that day as investors clearly appreciated Home Depot’s latest earnings … Read more

Asset Allocators Fail, Advisors Should Pick Stocks, Save Investors $34 Billion Annually

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  Image: The area of large cap growth has trounced that of the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio for more than a decade. Image Source: Morningstar. By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ve all heard the stories. Professional stock pickers can’t beat a bunch of monkeys throwing darts at the pages of the WSJ. A cows’ investment decisions are just as good as the pros’. Stock prices reflect all available information so not even professionals have an edge (e.g. the efficient markets hypothesis). Most professionals can’t outperform their respective benchmarks, so how could mom and pop? Look at this from one of today’s bloggers: The traditional argument, which you’ve probably heard many times before, goes as follows: since most people (even the professionals) can’t … Read more

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds

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Image Source: Terry Johnson By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ll have our traditional Valuentum Weekly email coming out on Sunday, and I’m excited to say our team is putting the finishing touches on our technology industry update, so we’ll have a whole bunch of fresh reports for you to look at Sunday evening/Monday morning. It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been through the past two years. Often, we forget how helpful the warning that markets were going to crash was the weekend before they did on February 22, 2020, “Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? – Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios,” how we thought dollar-cost-averaging made sense at the bottom in March 2020, and how we went “all-in” in April … Read more

Home Depot Teams Up with Walmart

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Image Source: Home Depot Inc – Fiscal 2020 Annual Report By Callum Turcan On October 6, Home Depot Inc (HD) announced a partnership with Walmart Inc (WMT), becoming the first retail giant to join Walmart’s GoLocal delivery program which was launched back in August 2021. The delivery program utilizes Walmart’s vast distribution and fulfillment network to provide same-day and next-day delivery services. Home Depot is improving its ability to capitalize on the ongoing proliferation of e-commerce, a trend that really picked up steam in the wake of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. In our view, this trend has incredibly long legs. Home Depot’s senior vice president of supply chain, Stephanie Smith, noted in the press release that “this partnership brings us … Read more

10 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE AT VALUENTUM

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Tickerized for the DIA. ———- About Our Name 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 At Valuentum, we take Buffett’s thoughts one step further. We think the best opportunities arise from an understanding of a variety of investing disciplines in order to identify the most attractive stocks at any given time. Valuentum therefore analyzes each stock across a wide spectrum of philosophies, from deep value through momentum investing. And a combination of the … Read more