Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Jan 30, 2022

Our Favorite Biotech Vertex Pharma Powers Ahead, Leaps 6%+
Image: Vertex Pharma continues to soar toward our fair value estimate. The biotech arena is difficult to navigate, which is why we tend to play it a bit more conservative than most. Vertex Pharma has an established, cash-flow generating portfolio of cystic fibrosis therapies, which has helped to establish a net cash rich balance sheet and a steady stream of robust free cash flow, unlike many biotechs that need external capital and are at risk of never reaching commercialization. We’re excited about Vertex’s clinical pipeline of potentially transformative genetic therapies, and we like its exposure to CRISPR gene-editing technology, which could be a huge business in the years ahead. Vertex Pharma remains our favorite biotech play and an idea in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio.

Jan 25, 2022

Johnson & Johnson’s Pending Split-Up, Talc Liabilities, New CEO Add Complexity to a Once-Clean Dividend Growth Story
Image Shown: J&J continues to face legal liabilities due to talcum powder lawsuits. Image Source: Mike Mozart. We prefer simple dividend growth stories. Unfortunately, J&J is no longer one of them. A split of Johnson & Johnson’s consumer products division from its medical device and pharma divisions in the next 18-24 months means that dividend growth investors will have added complexity as a new CEO takes the helm, all the while the board manages its growing talc liabilities during a global pandemic. Shares of J&J haven’t been as strong a performer as other stocks on the market the past five years, but we still like its firm foundation and nice combination of dividend yield and potential dividend growth for now. That may change in the coming months to years, however.

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.

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 3, 2021

Valuentum Weekly: Nothing Surprising, Well-Positioned!
Image source: Cathie Wood's flagship ETF, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) has fallen more than 40% from its 52-week high. This is nothing short of a complete and utter bloodbath for such an actively-managed fund, in our view. We note this for context. We're not just talking about one or two or five stocks that are down 40% from 52-week highs, but the *entire fund.* Investors have to keep things in perspective. It's perfectly reasonable within the context of a portfolio to have a few stocks off 10%, 20%, or maybe even 50% from all-time highs. However, if your entire portfolio is down 40%+ from 52-week highs, you're doing something wrong.We're finally getting a shake out of the substantial excesses in the market. Entities such as DocuSign are down more than 40% during the trading session December 3, 2021. All-star funds such as the ARK Innovation ETF with well-known fund managers are down over 40% from all-time highs. It's a bloodbath out there if you're not positioned correctly. I can only imagine the sheer panic that's going on right now. It's laughable, but we sometimes get flak if we have one or two or five companies in a couple portfolios of 20-40 stocks that trail the index. My goodness, what must these investors then be saying to fund managers who are down 40%+ from 52-week highs, and whose funds are down 20%-30% on the year when the S&P 500 is up over 20%. It's clear that Valuentum customers demand a lot more from us than even the best, highest-profile managers out there, and we appreciate that. Thank you. A lot of the traditional IBD and Motley Fool stocks look to be stumbling as well. But we're sitting pretty at Valuentum, and here's why.

Dec 2, 2021

Best Idea Vertex Pharma Boosts Guidance (Again), Buying Back Stock While Awaiting Key Clinical Trials
Image Shown: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc is one of our favorite biotech ideas. Image Source: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc – Third Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation. Vertex Pharma has a robust drug pipeline, though all eyes are on its potential CTX001 treatment. Should the treatment receive the green light from key healthcare regulators, Vertex Pharma’s financial performance would benefit from a major growth catalyst. In the meantime, we think it is prudent for Vertex Pharma to continue leveraging its financial strength to repurchase sizable chunks of its stock. We like Vertex Pharma as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio.

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.

Nov 3, 2021

Large Cap Growth Has More Room To Run
“The stylistic area of large cap growth has been one of our favorite areas because of the strong net cash rich, free cash flow generating, secular growth powerhouses that make up much of the space. The image is a rundown of the key Valuentum statistics for the top 15 holdings of the Schwab U.S. Large Cap Growth ETF (SCHG). We believe where large cap growth goes, so does the broader market, considering the hefty weightings of some of these stocks in other broad-based indices. Based on the high end of our fair value estimate range for this group of bellwethers, the broader U.S. markets still have room to run, to the tune of 7%+, despite the many highs already reached during 2021. Though traditional valuation multiples may seem stretched by most measures, many market bellwethers have huge net cash positions and tremendous free cash flow growth potential. We expect the equity markets to continue to be led by large cap growth.” – Brian Nelson, CFA

Oct 21, 2021

Johnson & Johnson Boosts Guidance Again, Posts Great Earnings Update
Image Shown: Johnson & Johnson reported strong performance across its three core business operating segments in the third quarter of fiscal 2021. Image Source: Johnson & Johnson – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR Earnings Presentation. On October 19, Johnson & Johnson reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended around the end of September 2021) that missed consensus top-line estimates but beat consensus bottom-line estimates. The healthcare giant also raised its full-year guidance (again) for fiscal 2021 as its ‘Pharmaceutical’ segment is growing at a robust pace, its ‘Medical Device’ segment is steadily recovering from the worst of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic, and its ‘Consumer Health’ segment is holding up well. We continue to like Johnson & Johnson as an idea in both the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and the Dividend Growth Newsletter 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’).