Z-SYMBOLS
August 9, 2023 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Top 50 Stocks, V |
Today’s Quick Pick is Visa (NYSE: V). Shares of Visa are showing a good trend reversal. From June through July, Visa’s stock began to pick up after sitting flat for some time. The reason for this jump? The company’s second-quarter report included a 13% increase in net revenue, a 9% increase in payment volume, and an increase in margins to 67.5% from 66.9% in the previous quarter. Visa is so embedded in the economy that it can actually outperform the economy. For example, Visa recently went to war with small merchants by lowering the permissible surcharge on credit card payments from 4% to 3% and the company has deployed inspectors to ensure merchants are abiding by that rule. That’s even though back in 2017, the Supreme Court decided that laws that regulate surcharge amounts were unconstitutional. Visa isn’t making a law, but they clearly have the market clout to put this kind of pressure on small businesses. The 20% of merchants that have imposed a surcharge on credit card use don’t seem to be affecting profit margins or growth for Visa. Morningstar calculates that Visa is trading at a 17% discount to fair value, although the trailing twelve-month PE is 30.2. Visa always trades at higher than a market multiple. The 5-year average PE is 35.6, so 30.2 actually looks like a discount. I own it in my 12-18 month Jubak Picks portfolio and will continue to hold it there. I am also adding it to my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio.
July 27, 2023 | Daily JAM, Dividend Income, VZ |
Today’s Quick Pick is Verizon ( VZ). Verizon’s stock is up after recently reporting earnings. Verizon reported adjusted earnings of $1.21, up only 4 cents from the expected $1.17. The modest surprise was not what boosted the stock, however. Revenue was down year over year to $32.6 billion from $33.79 billion and the earnings were lower than last year’s $1.31 during this quarter. So why was there a bump in the stock? Verizon was expected to report a loss of 9,000 subscribers as competitors, like T-Mobile, chipped away at its customer base, but the company actually gained 8,000 postpaid subscribers. The stock has a great dividend of 7.68%, but the worry was, if Verizon continued to bleed subscribers, it would no longer be able to support the dividend. With the number of subscribers going up, that dividend looks to be safe and the stock will remain in my dividend portfolio on JubakPicks and JubakAM.
July 25, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, MSFT |
This isn’t the quarter I expect from a stock trading at a record, all-time high. Today, after the close, Microsoft (MSFT) reported fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.69 a share. That exceeded Wall Street estimates of $2.55 a share.Revenue rose on 8% to $56.2 billion Wall Street analysts had expected $55.5 billion. For the fiscal 2023 year revenue grew by just 7%. That was the lowest annual growth since 2017.
July 25, 2023 | Daily JAM, DHR, Jubak Picks, Long Term, Top 50 Stocks |
The comparisons with 2022 continue to hurt shares of Danaher (DHR). For the second quarter, reported yesterday, the company saw revenue down 8% and adjusted earnings per share off 26% year over year. The culprit is easy to see. But I continue to hold Danaher in my Jubak Picks Portfolio where the position, initiated on June 20, 2017, was up 198.3% as of the close on July 25. Tomorrow July 26, I’ll be adding these shares to my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio. Danaher is one way to play the growth of the drug sector and the need of these companies for pure water.
July 21, 2023 | Daily JAM, Dividend Income, IRM, Jubak Picks |
Today’s Quick Pick is Iron Mountain (IRM). Iron Mountain has been around since the 1950s. It started off as a corporate document storage repository and has gradually moved into shredding, security and digitalization (they digitize and store important documents) and a full cloud storage and management offering. The company has 93 million square feet of storage around the world in 56 countries. It acquired about 29 companies in the last three years as the company looks to consolidate a still rather fragmented industry. It has had an average 5.6% revenue growth over the last three years. Morningstar calculates the shares trade at a 3% discount, with a PE of 31, and they pay a 4.2% dividend. I think Iron Mountain is riding a number of o-gern The long-term trends that include corporate and cyber security, as well as the need for document backup in a age of climate change. I’ll be adding this to my JubakPicks and Dividend portfolios on Monday, July 24..
July 20, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, TSLA |
Tesla (TSLA) delivered a big beat over Wall Street estimates when the company reported second quarter earnings after the close yesterday. The company reported earnings of 91 cents a share, well above the Wall Street projection of 80 cents a share. But in after hours trading, the stock still fell by 4.20%. Today, July 20, the shares are down 7.17% as of 10:45 a.m. New York time. And this comes despite another record quarter of unit sales. The problem?
July 13, 2023 | Daily JAM, NVDA, Top 50 Stocks, Videos, Volatility |
Today’s Quick Pick is Nvidia (NVDA)–Hold Through Earnings on August 23. Nvidia reports late in this quarter’s earnings season, and this report is expected to be very good. Wall Street’s expectations range from a low of 75 cents a share to a high of $1.75 but the consensus is $1.66 a share, up from 32 cents last year. Nvidia has been reporting 30% positive surprises in recent quarters, so there’s a good chance the results may be even better than expected. My suggestion is to hold the stock through this report in August, and then think about selling. I know, I know. Sell Nvidia!? That’s crazy! Here’s the thing. At some point, Nvidia’s growth rate is going to start to slow. When it does, people will look at the stock and decide the slower growth rate may not
July 7, 2023 | Daily JAM, Millennial, SEDG, Top 50 Stocks |
This breakthrough in solar power isn’t enough to stop global warming by itself, but it sure is enough to upend the entire energy sector within the next five years. Multiple research groups (and “multiple’ is important here because it means there’s more likelihood that the lab results will hold up to scrutiny. Two groups published the details of their efficiency breakthroughs in the journal Science on Thursday, and at least two others are known to have pushed well beyond 30%.) have reported a breakthrough that will push the efficiency with which solar cells convert sunlight to electricity through the 30% level that has been thought to mark the maximum conversion of sunlight to electricity.
July 6, 2023 | COP, Daily JAM, Dividend Income, Mid Term, PXD |
On Wednesday, July 5, Exxon Mobil (XOM) told investors that second quarter earnings could drop by 50% from earnings in the second quarter of 2022. On Thursday, July 6, shares of Exxon Mobil closed down 3.73%. Remember, we’re talking about Exxon Mobil here, one gigantic oil company. So while earnings could fall by half in the quarter, the company is still looking at quarterly earnings of $6.2 billion. Exxon’s news has implications across the energy sector.
June 29, 2023 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, LLY |
This week’s Quick Pick is Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY). The worldwide explosion in diabetes has increased the demand for medicine to prevent the illness from advancing from Type 2 to Type 1 diabetes. In developing these drugs, it’s become clear these Type 2 diabetes prescriptions have also excellent potential for weight loss. Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide drug, the market leader, has been FDA approved for both uses and is marketed as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss. Eli Lilly’s competitor drug, Mounjaro, is already approved by the FDA for Type 2 diabetes. That drug is likely to be approved for weight loss as well and looks like it may work even better than Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. illy’s second diabetes drug, Retatrutide, is still in the pipeline and just reported Phase clinical results showed a 24% loss of body weight after 11 months. Th drug still has to go into Phase III trials but it is likely to be approved. Lilly’s stock has a 1% yield and is trading at a trailing 12 month PE of 72, so this stock is not cheap. I’ve had this stock in my Jubak Picks portfolio since November 20, 2022 and it’s up about 34% since then, but I believe we can expect another 20% to the upside with the approval of their drugs in the pipeline. The relatively low risk with a likely 20% return makes this a very attractive stock to me.
June 28, 2023 | Daily JAM, LNG, UNG, Volatility |
Today’s video is The Long Hot Summer and Natural Gas. If you’ve been following the weather, you know about the huge heat bubble in Texas where temperatures have reached 120 degrees. High temperatures combined with humidity of around 80% can cause serious health problems and even death. The National Weather Service expects this weather to continue and to spread to other parts of the United States, resulting in more and more people staying inside with the air conditioning cranked all the way up. This spike in temperatures is creating a similar spike in natural gas prices. On June 26, we hit a 16-week high for natural gas prices, and July natural gas futures (for July delivery) have been up 14 out of the last 17 sessions. This price surge has two causes ad is operating on two time frames. In the immediate term, the increased air conditioning use stresses the grid, leading to a reliance on natural gas back-ups to supply the energy needed to cover these demand peaks. This, of course, creates a lot more demand for natural gas in the short term. The second thing is a surprising change in long-term thinking about the future of natural gas. I’m seeing a new wave of 20-year supply contracts from places like China and Japan, suggesting countries are thinking that natural gas has a longer future as a transitional fuel as the world moves toward more sustainable energy sources. The two stocks I would look at here are Cheniere Energy, (LNG) and United States Natural Gas Fund, (UNG). Cheniere is up 6% in the last month and is a good way to play the long-term trend in natural gas use. UNG hit a potential bottom in June and is up 16% in the last month. The bigger gain is a result of the ETF being hammered due earlier in the year. UNG is a far more volatile buy, with much higher risk, so if you’re uncomfortable with risk, stick with the more modest but more predictable gains from Cheniere.
June 27, 2023 | Daily JAM, GNRC, LNG, Volatility |
Heat advisories now stretch from northern Florida to southern New Mexico, and excessive-heat warnings have been issued for much of Texas and parts of New Mexico and Arizona and along the Gulf Coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. New Orleans is included in the zone of greatest heat risk, with actual air temperatures around 100 degrees and humidity that will push heat indexes to 115 degrees. Excessive-heat watches have been posted for the lower Mississippi Valley and include Memphis and Nashville; Huntsville and Birmingham; Jackson, Mississippi; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Poplar Bluff, Missouri. “Extreme heat and humidity will significantly increase the potential for heat-related illnesses,” cautioned the National Weather Service, “particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.” The heat will relent somewhat into early next week for portions of the Southeast and Mid-South, but there is no immediate end in sight for Texas, where blistering and brutal conditions look to continue as a heat doe lingers over Texas. And this is only the latest U.S. manifestation of a global problem.
