Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Mar 1, 2020

COVID-19 Crisis Intensifies
Image Source: CDC. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The world is being challenged today by what some including Bill Gates believe might be a "once-in-a-century pathogen." We do not know the eventual outcome, whether the impact of this illness ends up being as profound as the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919 (which inflicted a death toll in the tens of millions), but we maintain our view the markets have yet to come to grips with the impact of COVID-19 on economic activity and potential ramifications on the global economy and the banking system. What is currently a "biological" crisis may turn into an all-out global financial crisis, one that could end up worse than the 2008/2009 mortgage meltdown. Instead of toxic mortgages putting a halt to lending activity across the globe as they did over a decade ago, today's crisis stems from an illness that very few of the top health officials in the world know much about--not only in the duration of COVID-19's incubation period, but also in how easily it seems to be spreading, and how deadly it may eventually become, particularly if health systems around the world become overwhelmed.

Feb 27, 2020

Has the Stock Market Crash Begun?
Image: CDC. Transmission electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first U.S. case of COVID-19, formerly known as 2019-nCoV. The spherical viral particles, colorized blue, contain cross-section through the viral genome, seen as black dots.According to the latest Situation Report from the CDC, dated February 25, there are now more new cases reported from countries outside of China than from China. Globally, there are currently 80,000+ confirmed cases in nearly 40 countries, with China, South Korea, Italy and Iran the major hotspots. Up until now, investors have been anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop (i.e. community spread in the United States), with the CDC even saying, “It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country (United States) will have severe illness.” Well, that “when” is now. The CDC just confirmed February 26, 2020, a possible instance of community spread of COVID-19 in the US.

Feb 24, 2020

ALERT: Adding Market Crash 'Protection,' Removing MSFT, BKNG
Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  We're adding out-of-the-money put options to both the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio and Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. We're removing Microsoft from the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, and we're removing Booking Holdings from the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. We reiterate that, had the Dow Jones Industrial Average already swooned a couple thousand points on news of the COVID-19 outbreak, we might have considered some undervalued stocks with strong momentum potential "buying opportunities." However, to this point in time, the markets have largely ignored COVID-19, with major US indices still sitting near all-time highs. We could be in for a wild ride in the coming weeks and months, and an outright market crash is not out of question. For those looking for short-idea considerations, please consider the Exclusive publication here. We remain fully-invested in the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio given its yield and income focus.

Feb 22, 2020

Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? -- Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios
Image Source: World Health Organization, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Situation Report -- 32. We don’t think this is the environment to put new capital to work, and we remain highly cautious of what COVID-19 means for global economic growth not just in the first quarter of 2020 but for the rest of this year (maybe longer). Right now, the US markets are not really factoring in anything related to COVID-19, and perhaps may be adjusting to China’s stimulus in artificially propping up the markets as if the outbreak is somehow a “positive thing.” With the S&P 500 trading at 19.0 forward earnings estimates--estimates that are likely too high given the evidence we are seeing with respect to a slowdown due to COVID-19--and corporate debt levels more elevated than ever before (note, a high net debt level should depress the P/E in enterprise valuation--US corporate debt has advanced 50% over the past decade, to $10 trillion), it is our contention that the current market reflects a “situation-equivalent” forward P/E (i.e. rightsizing for new net debt relative to the dot-com peak and adjusting for lower forward earnings expectations compared with current forecasts) perhaps greater than 24.4, which was recorded at the peak of the dot-com bubble. Though interest rates are lower than they were at the time of the dot-com crash, suggesting a modest reasonable bump to normalized forward P/E ratios of ~15 times to reflect “fair valuations,” we could seriously be in for fundamental-driven crash soon, as both the earnings multiple and earnings estimates contract aggressively. Hypothetically, a contraction to a 16x forward multiple on earnings estimates just 10% lower than currently forecast implies an S&P 500 of 2,566, or a swoon of about 20%-30% from current levels--and that would just get us down to 16x still-respectable forward numbers. How quantitative-driven price-agnostic trading may impact this scenario is not known either, and all of this could be setting up for a wild ride in the coming weeks and months. Fasten your seatbelts. We’ll have a few newsletter portfolio alerts coming Monday.

Jan 23, 2020

Resetting Your Mental Model
Image Source: affen ajlfe. Having the right mental model and using the right information can be the reason why you win or lose in investing.

Nov 19, 2019

Improving Our Coverage
Valuentum continues to scour the stock market for new ideas. We’ll be following the set of companies in this list via commentary on our website and a data sheet updated periodically.

Nov 13, 2019

Chesapeake Energy’s Pain Indicates Nothing “Safe” About Energy MLP Distributions
Image Source: Valuentum slide deck, December 2015. Valuentum released its bearish case on MLPs in June 2015.  Summary There is nothing "safe" in the stock market, and given the track record of the distributions of pipeline MLPs, there is nothing "safe" about pipeline MLP distributions. The MLP business model continues to be phased out, a trend that we anticipated when we made our bearish call on the group in June 2015. Chesapeake Energy's pain is a yet another reminder of the pipeline MLP group's exposure to energy resource pricing through the health (or rather ill-health) of its customer base. We continue to encourage pipeline operators to disclose free cash flow (cash flow from operations less all gross capital spending) prominently in press releases, alongside other industry-specific metrics. Investors of Chesapeake could get completely wiped out in a Chesapeake bankruptcy, and this could have implications across the pipeline MLP arena.

Aug 7, 2019

Tallgrass Energy’s Growth Runway Shorter Than Expected
Image Source: Tallgrass Energy LP -- IR Presentation. We parted with Tallgrass as we see greater opportunities in other midstream firms and different parts of the high-yield universe, such as Enterprise Products Partners, which have stronger growth runways and assets that better cater to the ever-evolving needs of North America’s oil & gas industry. Recent weakness in TGE indicates the market is losing faith in Tallgrass’ growth trajectory and its future free cash flows.

Jul 19, 2019

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending July 19
Let's take a look at companies that raised/lowered their dividend this week.

Jul 18, 2019

Kinder Morgan Modestly Disappoints But Its Problems Are Transitory
Image Shown: Kinder Morgan Inc expects a lot of organic growth opportunities will be generated via surging domestic demand for natural gas and rising natural gas export capacity in the US. Image Source: Kinder Morgan Inc – IR Presentation. We remain optimistic on Kinder Morgan’s dividend growth opportunities, and our fair value estimate still stands at $23 per share.