Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Sep 8, 2021

Dividend Aristocrat Albemarle Bets Big on Lithium
Image Source: Albemarle Corporation – May 2021 IR Presentation. Dividend Aristocrat Albemarle Corp is a specialty chemicals company with three core business operating segments; ‘Lithium’ (primarily used for battery storage solutions), ‘Catalysts’ (primarily used in the oil refining industry), and ‘Bromine Specialties’ (primarily used as flame retardants). The company is focused on aggressively growing its lithium derivatives operations going forward, Albemarle’s largest in terms of revenues and most profitable in terms of non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA performance. Albemarle offers investors a way to play both the ongoing EV boom and the recovery in global refined petroleum product demand (via its Catalysts business operating segment) as the world slowly emerges from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's learn more about this fascinating idea.

Sep 3, 2021

Best Idea PayPal Is a Tremendous Enterprise with Ample Capital Appreciation Upside
Image Source: PayPal Holdings Inc – 2021 Investor Day Presentation. PayPal is a stellar enterprise with rock-solid financials. The company is incredibly free cash flow positive and carries a pristine balance sheet while also sporting tremendous pricing power. We continue to be enormous fans of the fintech giant and expect to hear more great things from the company going forward. PayPal’s growth outlook is incredibly bright, and we forecast the company’s free cash flows will swell higher over the years and decades to come. Management noted during the firm’s 2021 Investor Day event that the goal is to allocate 30%-40% of PayPal’s future free cash flows towards share repurchases over the medium-term. We view PayPal’s capital appreciation upside quite favorably and continue to like the company as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio with a sizable 'weighting' in the portfolio.

Aug 31, 2021

Best Idea Vertex Pharma Marching Forward with Innovative CRISPR Technology
Image Shown: An overview of Vertex Pharmaceuticals commercialized drug portfolio and pipeline. Image Source: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc – Second Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation. The world of medicine and therapeutics continues to evolve, with gene editing CRISPR technology offering the medical community an immense source of potential life-saving therapies over the years and decades to come. Vertex Pharma is well-positioned to capitalize on any potential CRISPR technology breakthroughs, and we continue to like shares of VRTX as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Should the company's experimental gene-editing therapy CTX001 get commercialized, that would provide Vertex Pharma with an incredibly powerful growth catalyst, complementing its existing portfolio of commercialized drugs that treat cystic fibrosis (‘CF’).

Aug 20, 2021

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week August 20
Let's take a look at companies that raised/lowered their dividend this week.

Aug 19, 2021

Cisco Systems Continues to Recover; Growth Outlook Quite Promising
Image Source: Cisco Systems Inc – Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR Presentation. On August 18, Cisco Systems reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended July 31, 2021) that beat consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Cisco Systems also offered guidance for both the first quarter of fiscal 2022 along with full-year guidance for fiscal 2022, breaking with tradition (usually the company does not offer full fiscal year forecasts). Cisco Systems is included as an idea in both the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios. We continue to be huge fans of Cisco Systems, and shares of CSCO initially moved significantly higher during the morning trading hours on August 19.

Aug 17, 2021

ExxonMobil Continues to Optimize Its Asset Base
Image Source: ExxonMobil Corporation – Second Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation. According to Reuters, ExxonMobil Corp is in the process of divesting its Fayetteville shale play position in Arkansas, which ExxonMobil’s spokeswoman Julie King confirmed according to the news outlet. This is an upstream asset focused on the extraction of natural gas from the ground via “fracking” techniques (combing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to unlock raw energy resources from the ground).

Aug 12, 2021

Dividend Growth Idea Qualcomm Enters Bidding War to Bolster Automotive Growth Runway
Image Source: Qualcomm Inc – March 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders Presentation. One of our favorite semiconductor plays is Qualcomm. For those just getting familiar with the name, the company is about much more than just supplying components used in smartphones. While the rollout of 5G-capable smartphones will provide Qualcomm’s medium-term financial performance a large boost due to its Snapdragon mobile platform offerings, another key aspect of Qualcomm’s promising growth story is its exposure to the automotive industry.

Aug 6, 2021

ExxonMobil’s Great Earnings Report and Promising Growth Outlook
Image Shown: An overview of ExxonMobil Corporation’s strategy to generate shareholder value going forward. Image Source: ExxonMobil Corporation – Second Quarter of 2021 Earnings IR Presentation. ExxonMobil’s financial performance is on the upswing, and its operational performance has been firing on all cylinders of late. We continue to be big fans of both ExxonMobil’s capital appreciation upside and dividend growth potential. Our fair value estimate for ExxonMobil under our “base” case scenario sits at $83 per share, well above where shares of XOM are trading as of this writing. The company’s Dividend Cushion ratio sits near parity at 0.9, and we rate both ExxonMobil’s Dividend Growth and Dividend Safety ratings as “GOOD” given its impressive cash flow generating potential. Shares of XOM yield a nice ~6.0% as of this writing.

Aug 6, 2021

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week August 6
Let's take a look at companies that raised/lowered their dividend this week.

Aug 3, 2021

Chevron Posts a Great Earnings Update, Share Repurchases to Resume
Image Shown: An overview of Chevron Corporation’s performance in the second quarter of 2021. We include shares of Chevron as an idea in both our Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios and continue to be huge fans of the name as the global energy complex continues to recover from the worst of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19 pandemic). Image Source: Chevron Corporation – Second Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation. The global energy complex continues to recover from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that speaks quite favorably to Chevron’s outlook. Management is committed to improving the company’s balance sheet strength going forward, which we really appreciate. Chevron’s free cash flow performance in the second quarter highlights the incredibly powerful positive effect the recovery is having on its financial performance. Share buybacks, in moderation, represent a good use of capital in our view (based on where shares of CVX are trading at as of this writing). With all of this in mind, we would like to stress that Chevron remains committed to its dividend (the firm moderately boosted its quarterly dividend during the second quarter of 2021 by ~4% sequentially). We continue to like Chevron as an idea in both the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio.