Valuentum (val∙u∙n∙tum) [val-yoo-en-tuh-m] Securities Inc. is an independent investment research provider, offering premium equity reports and dividend reports, as well as commentary across all sectors/companies, a Best Ideas Newsletter (spanning market caps, asset classes), a Dividend Growth Newsletter, business/investing book reviews pre-public release, modeling tools/products, and more. Independence and integrity remain our core, and we strive to be a champion of the investor. Valuentum is based in the Chicagoland area.

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Valuentum Principals

Brian Nelson, CFA
President, Equity Research & ETF Analysis
E-mail: brian@valuentum.com

Brian Nelson is the president of equity research and ETF analysis at Valuentum Securities. Before founding Valuentum in early 2011, Mr. Nelson worked as a director at Morningstar, where he was responsible for training and methodology development within the firm's equity and credit research department. Prior to that position, he served as a senior industrials securities analyst covering aerospace, airlines, construction, and environmental services companies. Before joining Morningstar in February 2006, Mr. Nelson worked for a small capitalization fund covering a variety of sectors for an aggressive growth investment management firm in Chicago. He holds a Bachelor's degree in finance and a minor in mathematics, magna cum laude, from Benedictine University. Mr. Nelson has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He is best known in the financial industry as being the "Father of Valuentum Investing."

Get to Know Brian:

Brian led the charge in developing Morningstar's issuer credit ratings, developing and rolling-out one of the firm's proprietary credit metrics, the Cash Flow Cushion.

http://select.morningstar.com/welcome/credit/pdfs/Morningstar_CashFlowCushion.pdf

Brian is frequently quoted in the media and has been a frequent guest on Nightly Business Report, Bloomberg TV, and the MoneyShow.

Mr. Nelson is very experienced in valuing equities, developing Morningstar's discounted cash-flow model used to derive the fair value estimates for the company's entire equity coverage universe.

Brian worked on a small cap fund and a micro cap fund that were ranked within the top 10th percentile and top 1st percentile within the Small Cap Lipper Growth Universe, respectively, in 2005.

RJ Towner
Director, Research Development
E-mail: rj@valuentum.com

RJ Towner is director of research development for Valuentum Securities, leading the firm's qualitative equity research. He also assists in managing Valuentum's market-beating Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio. RJ is frequently quoted in the media and has been a guest speaker at the MoneyShow. Prior to joining Valuentum in 2012, Mr. Towner worked in equity research and advisor software at Morningstar. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in economics from DePaul University's Driehaus School of Business.

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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, 1993

At Valuentum, we take Buffett's thoughts one step further. We think the best opportunities arise from a complete understanding of all 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 to momentum investing. And a combination of the two approaches found on each side of the spectrum (value/momentum) in a name couldn't be more representative of what our analysts do here; hence, we're called Valuentum.

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Valuentum has developed a user-friendly, discounted cash-flow model that you can use to value any operating company that you wish. Click here to buy this individual-investor-friendly model now! It could be the best investment you make.