Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Economic Roundtable: Quant Quake, “Quac-cidental Correlation,” and Economic Moats
Image Source: Anders Sandberg. Last week, the markets may have revealed that internals aren’t all that healthy. Major equity markets experienced a “rotation” that reminded many investors of the “quant quake” from August 2007. As Valuentum’s Brian Nelson wrote in Value Trap, “just a few bad days in the market caused a rapid unwinding of many quant long-short strategies (back then). Goldman’s chief financial officer said at the time that the firm was witnessing ‘25-standard deviation moves, several days in a row.’” On the surface, markets last week seemed relatively calm, but as the episode in 2007 revealed the activity last week may just be the calm before the storm. Many are pointing to overcrowded trades in betting against certain factors, while others are saying that many were forced to deleverage. We’re not so sure, and we think it may be the opposite: after years of suffering from lagging “value” returns, we think several quant shops stepped in to take on leverage, betting on a return to “value.” Let's talk about last week's quant quake, spurious correlations (the “guac-cidental correlation, in fact), economic moats and much more.

Oracle’s Cloud Business Solid; CEO Hurd Taking Some Time Off
Oracle's strong Dividend Cushion ratio reflects considerable free cash flow generation in excess of cash dividends paid. Fiscal first quarter free cash flow of $5.6 billion covered cash dividends paid of $795 million more than 7 times.

Semiconductors Broadcom and Cree Push Forward in an Uncertain Environment
Image Source: Broadcom Inc -- IR Presentation. While the free cash flow outlooks for AVGO and CREE are relatively strong, weakening business confidence and investment around the world and mounting geopolitical tensions between the US and China (short-term tariff reprieves aside) create monstrous headwinds that the semiconductor industry can only do so much to mitigate. We don’t include many semiconductors in our portfolios given how notoriously difficult the space is to play. As things stand today, Intel is included in both our Dividend Growth Newsletter and Best Ideas Newsletter portfolios, and we continue to like INTC as our way to gain exposure to secular growth trends within the semiconductor space.

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending September 13
Let's take a look at companies that raised/lowered their dividend this week.

Economic Roundtable: “Value” Versus “Growth” Rotation
“This kind of trading activity could be setting the stage for a big quant fund blow up, if the kind of leverage it takes to move the markets to this magnitude was applied. All it may take is for the B/M “value” factor to continue to suffer in the coming 12-18 months--it’s possible we could see a few quant firms go belly up. My guess is that market participants are paying very close attention to this activity, and if they “smell blood,” things could get ugly.” – Brian Nelson, CFA

Why We Like BIN Holding Visa So Much
Recent volatility in Visa’s share price aside, the long-term trajectory of this company is sound and shares of Visa trade modestly below our fair value estimate at this time. We like the strong upward momentum in Visa’s share price year-to-date and expect that shares of V could test the upper bounds of our fair value range (as it stands today) over time.

DGN Holding Realty Income Continues Moving Higher
We like Realty Income and think there’s room for additional upside. As growth in global economic activity continues slowing down, weakening demand for US exports and hurting business confidence, the Federal Reserve is increasingly leaning towards additional rate cuts. REITs are major beneficiaries of a lower interest rate environment, especially those with top quality investment grade credit ratings and nice long growth runways like Realty Income.

Shares of DGN Holding Digital Realty Climbing Upwards
Image Source: Digital Realty Trust -- IR Presentation. Digital Realty is trading right above the top end of our fair value estimate range as of this writing, but we are keeping this holding in our Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio given its strong technical performance. We think excitement over the prospect of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates will continue to drive shares of higher yielding names higher, which includes high-quality data center REITs like Digital Realty.

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

Valuentum’s Economic Roundtable: Trade War, Factors and Beyond
The markets rallied hard September 5 on relief that the US and China will go back to the negotiations table next month. This back-and-forth news cycle is enough to give any investor whiplash. Let’s catch up with the Valuentum Team on the latest developments, not only with the trade war but also with respect to factor investing, possible bubbles and beyond.