Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Mar 31, 2024

Toll Brothers Notes Strong Start to Spring Selling Season
Toll Brothers raised its full-year fiscal 2024 guidance across key metrics, and the company noted that it has seen a "marked increase in demand coinciding with the start of the spring selling season." Though we don’t include any homebuilder in the simulated newsletter portfolios, it’s good to see things are progressing well at Toll Brothers.

Feb 25, 2024

We Remain Bullish; Is This 1995 – The Beginning of a Huge Stock Market Run?
Image: Large cap growth stocks have trounced the performance of the S&P 500, REITs, and bonds since the beginning of 2023. We expect continued outperformance in this area of the market. We’re now roughly four years past the depths of the COVID-19 meltdown, where equities collapsed in February and March of 2020. As the markets began to recover through 2020, our long-term conviction in equities only grew stronger. We think the biggest risk for long-term investors remains staying out of the market on the basis of what could be considered stretched valuation multiples. As we outlined heavily in the book Value Trap, valuation multiples hardly tell the complete story about a company and often omit key long-term earnings growth, cash flow dynamics, and balance sheet health considerations. We remain bullish on equities for the long haul, and we think the next couple years will be incredibly strong. Our best ideas can be found in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio, ESG Newsletter portfolio, and via the Exclusive publication as well as options idea generation.

Feb 9, 2024

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of February 9
Let's take a look at firms raising/lowering their dividends this week.

Jan 8, 2024

Thinking Slow: 3 Research Blind Spots That Changed the Investment World
Image Source: EpicTop10.com. We have to be on high alert about how our minds work. PBS recently delivered a four-part series examining how easily our minds are being hacked, and why it is so important to "think slow." When it comes to the active versus passive debate, does the analysis suffer from parameter risk? With respect to empirical, evidence-based analysis, does the analysis have the entire construct wrong? When it comes to short-cut multiples, are we falling into the behavioral trap of thinking on autopilot?

Dec 23, 2023

12 Reasons to Stay Aggressive in 2024
From outperforming simulated newsletter portfolios to fantastic success rates in the Exclusive publication to option ideas and great income-oriented ideas and beyond, we continue to deliver across our simulated newsletter suite as our latest video outlines. It’s hard to know exactly what 2024 will bring in terms of a market return, but the internals of the stock market and the U.S. economy look great to us. The new bull market we’re in could last for years, and as a result, we are staying aggressive with many of our new ideas as we look to benefit from these favorable trends.

Sep 20, 2023

ICYMI: Questions for Valuentum’s Brian Nelson
Valuentum's President Brian Nelson, CFA, answers your questions.

Aug 15, 2023

Home Depot’s Comparable Store Sales Continue Declines, Big Ticket Purchases Slow
Image: Our fair value estimate range of Home Depot. Shares of Home Depot are trading at the high end of the range at ~$325 per share at the time of this writing. Home Depot is one of the most resilient companies across the retail arena. The firm weathered the Great Financial Crisis [GFC] well and it handled the vicissitudes of the COVID-19 pandemic and aftermath flowingly as it juggled supply chain issues, changing consumer buying preferences, and increased demand as consumers remodeled and upgraded their working and living spaces while cocooning at home. The company’s second-quarter 2023 results, released August 15, came in better than expected, but comparable store sales fell 2% both in aggregate and in the U.S. Though comparable store sales declines improved from bigger declines in the first quarter, Home Depot’s guidance for comparable sales to fall 2%-5% for all of fiscal 2023 indicates there may be some further year-over-year weakness ahead. We’re sticking with Home Depot in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, however.

May 30, 2023

Paper: Value and Momentum Within Stocks, Too
Abstract: This paper strives to advance the field of finance in four ways: 1) it extends the theory of the “The Arithmetic of Active Management” to the investor level; 2) it addresses certain data problems of factor-based methods, namely with respect to value and book-to-market ratios, while introducing price-to-fair-value ratios in a factor-based approach; 3) it may lay the foundation for academic literature regarding the Valuentum, the value-timing, and ultra-momentum factors; and 4) it walks through the potential relative outperformance that may be harvested at the intersection of relevant, unique and compensated factors within individual stocks.

Feb 22, 2023

Walmart Warns: “Prices Are Still High and There Is Considerable Pressure on the Consumer”
Image Source: Mike Mozart. Walmart’s outlook may very well be conservative, but its commentary certainly doesn’t bode well for many discretionary retailers and the broader economy. With the labor markets still strong and the producer price index still coming in hot, the Federal Reserve is not yet done raising rates. We expect the markets to test their uptrends and 200-day moving averages in the coming days to weeks, and if we break through these support levels to the downside, we won’t hesitate to “raise some cash” across the newsletter portfolios. When Walmart warns about the health of the consumer, we pay attention.

Feb 21, 2023

Home Depot’s Comps, Operating Income Fall in Q4; Hikes Dividend 10%
Image Source: Mike Mozart. On February 21, home improvement retailer Home Depot reported weak fourth quarter 2022 results that showed comparable store sales for the period falling 0.3% and operating income dropping 1.5% from the same period a year ago. Diluted earnings per share advanced 2.8% from last year’s quarter. The company is dealing with a weakened consumer spending environment and difficult comparisons from pandemic-driven demand of a year ago. Home Depot raised its dividend payout to 10%, to $2.09 per share, or $8.36 per share on an annualized basis. That translates into a forward estimated dividend yield of ~2.6%.