Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Aug 18, 2020

Lockheed Martin Secures Major Aircraft Order
Image Shown: Lockheed Martin Corporation’s ‘Aeronautics’ segment is its largest in terms of operating profit. Management boosted the firm’s operating profit guidance for fiscal 2020 during Lockheed Martin’s latest earnings report. Image Source: Lockheed Martin Corporation – Second Quarter of Fiscal 2020 IR Earnings Presentation. On August 14, the US Department of Defense (‘DoD’) awarded Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) a ten-year $62.0 billion contract covering the sale of F-16 aircraft to overseas buyers. This is an “indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (‘IDIQ’), fixed-price-incentive contract” and it is possible the ultimate sales figure under this deal will be lower than $62.0 billion. In the press release announcing the contract, the DoD noted the initial delivery order covers 90 aircraft and that this portion of the deal was worth a bit over $4.9 billion. Most of the production work on the new jet fighters will be conducted in South Carolina and Texas.

Jan 23, 2020

Why *NOW* Do You Care About Boeing’s Stock?
Image Source: Robert Sullivan. In no, way shape or form should you *now* be interested in Boeing’s stock. Let’s explain.

Jan 22, 2020

Economic Commentary: Bank Earnings, US-China Phase One No Big Deal and More
Bloomberg recently reported that U.S. banks’ record-breaking earnings have likely peaked for this cycle. We’ll get the team’s thoughts on this, and we’ll also cover views on the corporate credit cycle, China GDP, and the US election cycle. We don’t think the US-China Phase One deal amounts to much, other than removing the uncertainty that it, itself, created.

Oct 17, 2019

Honeywell’s Aerospace Division Its Crown Jewel
Image Source: 3Q 2019 Earnings Release. We’re huge fans of Honeywell. The company’s Aero operations are its crown jewel, and while Boeing is facing some troubles these days, we don’t expect much impact on Honeywell at all. In fact, we expect commercial aerospace to remain strong, even in the face of broader industrial weakness. The risks to the company’s HBT business could be starting to mount given some concerns in commercial real estate, but management isn’t really seeing any signs of yet, pointing to only moderating growth in 2020. The SPS division, while a headwind, probably won’t be a factor next year, but it could bounce back as inventories are cleared from the channel.

Oct 9, 2019

Fair Value Estimates Matter – Case Study: Boeing
Image Source: Boeing’s share price converged to our estimate of intrinsic value in the summer of 2019. The plane maker continues to navigate tumultuous skies with its 737 MAX. In early 2019, we thought shares of Boeing were severely overpriced, and they aggressively converged to our fair value estimate by summer, only to bounce a bit since then. We’re still huge fans of the company but working through the 737 MAX issues will take some time to get “right.” We expect more headline risk as it relates to contingent liabilities associated with the disasters, but nothing so punitive to shake the plane maker to the core. Boeing is an investment-grade credit with a huge backlog, and while we expect shares to be range-bound in the near-term, investors get to collect a nice juicy dividend as they wait for Boeing to sort things out. Shares yield 2.2% at the time of this writing.

Oct 4, 2019

Economic Commentary: Apple $225+, Brokers Tumble, Auto Sales Look Tired
Image: Shares of TD Ameritrade Holdings have been punished as online trading commissions go to zero. "Though all signs point to increased volatility, we maintain our view that we’re well-positioned in the newsletter portfolios, and the ideas highlighted in the Exclusive publication consider the backdrop economic conditions we closely monitor." -- Brian Nelson, CFA

Sep 30, 2019

Economic Commentary: US-Listed Chinese Names, 60-40 Stock-Bond Allocation and More
Image shown for informational/illustration purposes only.  There’s an interesting saying that I came across recently...that hits at the most important component of any fiduciary approach: capital preservation. The saying was “Friends don’t let friends buy and hold.” We’ve always employed the Valuentum strategy, which we believe is much more promising that a traditional buy and hold strategy. – Brian Nelson, CFA

Sep 19, 2019

FedEx Bemoans Trade Wars and Issues Weak Guidance, Shares Get Crushed
Image Source: FedEx Corp -- IR Presentation. Global logistics and shipping giant FedEx Corp reported first-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2020 (ended August 31) on September 17 that underwhelmed, sending shares sharply lower (down almost 13%) on September 18. As a capital intensive business operating in a cyclical industry, FedEx is stuck in a bind. Either pursue its drive for greater efficiency, greater scale, and (in theory) greater profits in the future while acknowledging that significant headwinds in the short- to medium-term will pressure free cash flows at a time of significant capital investment, or attempt to scale back which hollows out the core of management’s capital allocation strategy. Please note FedEx’s future aircraft purchase commitments make cutting capital expenditures by a meaningful amount a significantly harder task, reducing its financial flexibility. Management has opted to push forward into the fray. We are remaining firmly away from FedEx at this time.

Jul 23, 2019

Roaring 20s? -- Consumer Staples Valuations Stretched
Image Source: Alan Levine. Strong outlooks for Kimberly-Clark, United Technologies, Hexcel and Lockheed Martin point to an economy that is still gaining momentum. We caution investors of consumer staples stocks, however, with many equities holding large net debt positions, and the sector trading at almost 20 times forward earnings. Learn about the difference between the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and the Exclusive publication and much more in this note.

Jun 11, 2019

The United Technologies-Raytheon Merger Will Create a Defense and Commercial Aerospace Giant
Image Source: United Technologies' IR Presentation. While there are many hurdles United Technologies and Raytheon must vault before their proposed merger of equals gets approved, we see this deal leading to material cost savings which will drive significant free cash flow growth in the medium term. The company expects to generate $6.0 billion in pro forma free cash flow this year, and management forecasts that could rise to $8.0 billion by 2021.