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Fundamental data is updated weekly, as of the prior weekend. Please download the Full Report and Dividend Report for any changes.
Latest Valuentum Commentary

Mar 14, 2022
Valuentum Weekly: Yields on New Series I Savings Bonds Have Soared!
The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures are all indicated up Sunday night (March 13), but that may not mean much when trading kicks off tomorrow. The start to 2022 has been one of the worst stretches during the past decade, but broader market indexes still aren't down much, even after factoring in several expected rate hikes by the Fed and economic sanctions on Russia due to the war in Ukraine. According to data from Seeking Alpha, the S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), and Nasdaq (QQQ) are off ~12%, ~10%, and ~19% so far this year, respectively. However, this weakness compares to (and is inclusive of) incredible 5-year price-only returns on the SPY, DIA, and QQQ of ~77%, ~58%, ~146%, respectively, so it's hard for stock investors to be disappointed in much of anything, even if all they were able to do was match the returns of the S&P 500 the past 5 years. Many, however, unfortunately, diluted those 5-year returns with hefty bond and international exposure and sometimes large AUM fees, so the weakness in 2022 is probably more painful for some than perhaps it should be. In any case, we remain bullish on stocks for the long run, with a heavy bent toward large cap growth and big cap tech with tactical overweight "positions" in big cap energy.
Mar 9, 2022
Salesforce Has Room to Run
Image Source: Salesforce Inc – Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2022 IR Earnings Presentation. Salesforce offers software that assists its customers with marketing, customer service, sales, digital commerce, business development, collaboration, analytics, recruitment, and numerous other activities. These offerings aim to improve workplace productivity by streamlining certain functions and automating others. Salesforce provides a comprehensive suite of software solutions designed for businesses and government entities across its Customer 360 platform, while using analytics and AI to discover insights to further generate value for its customers. Over the two-plus decades Salesforce has been operating, the company has grown into a tech powerhouse by investing heavily in the business and continuously pursuing major acquisitions. Some of Salesforce’s bigger deals (by enterprise value) include acquiring Slack for $27.7 billion in a cash-and-stock deal that closed in July 2021, and buying Tableau for $15.7 billion through an all-stock deal that closed in August 2019. Let's dig a bit deeper into this idea.
Jan 22, 2022
Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater
Image: Erica Nicol. 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 may be doing much worse. Our timing to exit some very speculative ideas in the Exclusive publication has been impeccable. Beware of “best-fitted” backtest data regarding sequence of return risks. Research is to help you navigate the future, not the past. We remain bullish on stocks for the long haul and grow more and more excited as our simulated newsletter portfolios continue to hold up very well. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Stick with the largest, strongest growth names. We still like large cap growth and big cap tech, though we are tactical overweight in the largest energy stocks (e.g. XOM, CVX, XLE). The latest short idea in the Exclusive publication has collapsed aggressively since highlight January 9, and we remain encouraged by the resilience of ideas in the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio and ESG Newsletter portfolio. Our options idea generation remains ongoing.
Jan 21, 2022
Valuentum's Brian Nelson in CFA Institute's 'Enterprising Investor'
"The DCF model is not only relevant to today’s market, it remains an absolute necessity." -- Enterprising Investor
Jan 3, 2022
Oracle Buys Cerner
Image Source: Oracle Corporation – September 2019 Financial Analyst Meeting Presentation. Oracle Corp is one of our favorite dividend growth ideas that also earns high marks as it concerns ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing standards. We use our proprietary ESG scoring matrix, which scores firms on a 1-100 scale (100 being the best), to gauge their adherence to ESG practices. Oracle scores a nice 96 ESG rating with a strong showing across all three categories. We include shares of ORCL as an idea in both the Dividend Growth Newsletter and the ESG Newsletter portfolios. The high end of our fair value estimate range sits at $101 per share of Oracle, comfortably above where shares are trading at as of this writing. Shares of ORCL yield ~1.5% as of this writing.
Dec 26, 2021
VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT: 2021 Valuentum Exclusive Call: Inflation Is Good
Valuentum's President Brian Michael Nelson, CFA, explains why investors should not fear inflation, why government agencies such as the Fed and Treasury are prioritizing something other than price discovery, why the 10-year Treasury rate is a must-watch metric, and why Valuentum prefers the moaty constituents in large cap growth due to their net cash rich balance sheets, tremendous free cash flow generating potential, and secular growth tailwinds.
Dec 21, 2021
Adobe Signals Near Term Growth Rate Slowing Down, Longer Term Outlook Still Quite Bright
Image Source: Adobe Inc – December 2021 Financial Analysts Meeting IR Presentation. On December 16, Adobe reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended December 3, 2021) that modestly beat consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. However, shares of ADBE plummeted in the wake of its latest earnings report as management signaled that the firm’s near term growth rate would slow down in fiscal 2022 versus levels seen in fiscal 2021. Investors were apparently hoping for more, though in our view, Adobe’s longer term growth outlook is still quite bright. Our fair value estimate sits at $576 per share of Adobe.
Dec 13, 2021
Oracle Shares Surge!
Image Source: Oracle Corporation – November 2019 IR Presentation. Shares of Oracle Corp surged in the wake of the tech giant reporting its second-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings (period ended November 30, 2021) on December 9, which beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. We include Oracle as an idea in both the Dividend Growth Newsletter and ESG Newsletter portfolios, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the company’s performance of late. Its pivot towards cloud-oriented offerings is playing out quite favorably as Oracle’s growth outlook is now quite bright.
Nov 17, 2021
Asset Allocators Fail, Advisors Should Pick Stocks, Save Investors $34 Billion Annually
Image: Most asset allocators can’t even keep pace with the underperforming 60/40 stock/bond portfolio. Highlight added by author. Image Source: Wealth Management. Let’s get this industry back on track. This isn’t about going all-in on cryptoassets or being reckless with one’s capital the past 10 years, but merely picking stocks as a risk/wealth management strategy that approximated the S&P 500 for the past 10 years, and how that has crushed not only the best that quant has had to offer in small cap value but also indexing and asset allocation. One hundred and seventy percentage points of difference relative to the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, which itself beat many of the “best” asset allocators out there!!! This isn’t about taking on more risk, but rather that active stock selection should be viewed in the same vein as asset allocation. Why do we continue to publish the obviously-biased research in favor of indexing and asset allocation when stock selection could have delivered so much more for investors while saving them billions in annual fees from ETFs, etc. Today, the SEC has a lot on its plate regarding SPACs, cryptocurrency, new issues, ETF approvals and beyond, but in our view, the SEC shouldn’t necessarily be prioritizing 2 and 20 fees more than the index-fund fee chain, and it shouldn’t necessarily be trying to eliminate payment for order flow (PFOF) any more than it should seek to eliminate low-cost index funds. Let us not kid ourselves: It's clear why index funds and passive is winning -- the fees are tremendous! All things considered, if investors want to believe risk is volatility and suffer with indexing and asset allocators, that is their prerogative, but what worked in the past (deviations from equity selection as in the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio) bolstered by high interest rates in the 1980s is far from relevant today (and making up alternative assets isn't going to help). We don’t need more indexing and asset allocation books these days. We need more common sense. Stop selling index funds and start trying to help investors.
Nov 12, 2021
Hard Work and the Trust That Binds
Image: Terry Johnson. 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 29, 2020, “ALERT: Going to “Fully Invested” – The Fed and Treasury Have Your Back,” when we saw the writing was on the wall for this blow off top. If nothing else, these three moves alone during the past couple years have paid for a lifetime of subscriptions.


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The High Yield Dividend Newsletter, Best Ideas Newsletter, Dividend Growth Newsletter, Nelson Exclusive publication, and any reports, articles and content found on this website are for information purposes only and should not be considered a solicitation to buy or sell any security. The sources of the data used on this website are believed by Valuentum to be reliable, but the data’s accuracy, completeness or interpretation cannot be guaranteed. Valuentum is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for results obtained from the use of its newsletters, reports, commentary, or publications and accepts no liability for how readers may choose to utilize the content. Valuentum is not a money manager, is not a registered investment advisor and does not offer brokerage or investment banking services. Valuentum, its employees, and affiliates may have long, short or derivative positions in the stock or stocks mentioned on this site.