Visa: The Valuation Conundrum In A Frothy Market

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) continues to deliver phenomenal shareholder returns year after year, and thus far 2018 is no exception. Over the past year, Visa has appreciated 45% and currently sits at a 52-week high. Visa has become a top-performing perineal large-cap growth stock that continues to deliver despite emerging threats in the digital payments space, blockchain technology and maturing markets in the traditional payments space leading to slower growth prospects. I’ve been reluctant to get behind the stock of Visa considering its valuation, slowing growth and trends away from the traditional credit card space among the younger demographics that embrace PayPal (PYPL) and PayPal’s Venmo for payment options and exchanging payments between multiple parties.

Furthermore, Amazon (AMZN) may be disrupting the credit card transaction space with its potential launch of Amazon financial services and Amazon Pay. Despite Visa’s massive move over the past year, growth has become worrisome and touched down to single digits before bouncing back to double digits over the last two quarters. I feel that shareholders have become overly enthusiastic about Visa’s growth prospects. The stock has appreciated over 45% during the past year, boasts a P/E of over 35 and a PEG of over 2.0 in the midst of a frothy market. This scenario doesn’t provide a great benefit-reward profile at these levels in my opinion. Continue reading "Visa: The Valuation Conundrum In A Frothy Market" →

DOW Triggers New Monthly Trade Triangle

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere. Close to the end of the trading day on Wednesday the DOW finally triggered a new green monthly Trade Triangle at $25,402.83 letting it join both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ on the long/bullish side of the market. However, the DOW still has some work to do to break out of the sideways trend that it has been trapped in.

The last time we got a new green monthly Trade Triangle was on December 5, 2016, at $19,225.29 and that uptrend stayed in place hitting an all-time high of 26,616.71 on January 26, 2018, before falling a new three month low of $23.344.52 and triggering a new red monthly Trade Triangle signaling that the long bull run had run its course. But as you can see the monthly Trade Triangle can be a powerful signal when it changes. Are we set for another long run to the upside?

Monthly Trade Triangle

On the flip side, Facebook Inc. (FB) is having the worst trading day in its history losing nearly 20% a day after its quarterly revenue missed expectations. Global daily active users, a key metric for the social media giant, also disappointed investors. Additionally, Facebook said it expects its revenue growth rates to slow down from last year. Facebook's earnings per share, however, topped Wall Street estimates. Continue reading "DOW Triggers New Monthly Trade Triangle" →

Oil Market Scenarios And Risks: 4Q18

Posted on by Robert Boslego

Major uncertainties loom toward the end of the year when sanctions are currently scheduled to go into effect by the U.S. regarding Iran. The range of potential outcomes is large, as it is possible that a deal may be reached with Iran which avoids sanctions (Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a speech Sunday did not rule out peace between the U.S. and Iran), or Iran increases its exports to China and India, offsetting decreases to European countries. But the base case should assume some loss, on the order of 600,000 b/d.

President Trump has a few policy options to manage the size of the loss:

  • Pressuring the Saudis and other Gulf producers to maximize their output
  • Granting waivers so that more exports can flow
  • Ordering drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, potentially coordinated with the International Energy Agency

But Iran’s production is not the only risk. Venezuela’s production is in a meltdown and production may drop to just one million barrels per day by the end of the year. Whether it could stabilize at that level is an open question and is sure to provide a risk premium to oil futures prices.

I created three scenarios to develop a range of likely global inventory levels and future oil prices. The base case “demand for OPEC crude” is from OPEC’s own July Monthly Oil Market Report. In all three scenarios, I assume production in Venezuela drops to one million barrels per day (mmbd) by 1Q19 and stabilizes there. I also assume that Saudi production rises to 11 mmbd and remains at that level and production increases in the UAE and Kuwait. Continue reading "Oil Market Scenarios And Risks: 4Q18" →

Should The Fed Be Above Criticism?

Posted on by George Yacik

I suppose it was just a matter of time, but Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) finally hit the bond market last week.

According to some experts, last week’s nearly 10 basis point jump in long-term Treasury bond yields was at least partially due to the president’s unprecedented and impertinent statement that he didn’t like the fact that the Federal Reserve was raising interest rates.

For the past two years, the financial markets have been an island of blissful ignorance, totally disregarding all of the nonsense swirling around the White House, whether real or invented. The S&P 500 has risen about 30% since Donald Trump’s election despite all of the clouds hanging over his presidency, from alleged collusion with the Russians to the Paul Manafort thing to Stormy Daniels to surrendering American sovereignty to Vladimir Putin.

But now apparently the president has finally stepped in it deep enough to rattle the markets.

Last week the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose seven basis points to close the week just below 2.90%, its highest weekly close in a month. The yield on the 30-year bond jumped 10 bps to 3.03%, its highest level since June 26. According to the Wall Street Journal, some of that rise was due to Trump’s comments about Fed policy, neglecting to mention that the yield on the 10-year German government note – the European benchmark – was also up sharply last week, up nine bps on the week to 0.37%, its highest level since June 20.

So what did Trump say about the Fed that was so disturbing that it led some bondholders and traders to dump Treasury bonds and German Bunds? Continue reading "Should The Fed Be Above Criticism?" →

Alphabet Pushes NASDAQ To Record High

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere. The NASDAQ posted yet another record high for the year hitting $7,928.79 after Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) reported stronger-than-forecasted quarterly results sending the stock price to a record high of $1,275.00 at the open before it back off a touch. The outstanding earnings report from Alphabet helped to propel the FAANG stocks higher as well with Facebook (FB) climbing over 2%, Amazon (AMZN) gained 1.6%, Apple rose 0.8%, while Netflix (NFLX) inched up 0.3% before slipping back into negative territory.

The earnings season is off to a strong start, according to data compiled by FactSet. Of the 21.4% of S&P 500 companies that have reported, 80.6% have topped analyst expectations for second-quarter earnings. Meanwhile, 74.1% of those companies have surpassed revenue estimates.

Alphabet

Crude oil is on the rise as U.S. inventories continue to shrink and to get close to setting new three year lows for the product. Oil futures opened trading early in the am hitting a new three day low before reversing course and gaining a high of a little over 1.5% on the day so far. A U.S. government report is forecast to show a 3.1 million-barrel decline in commercial stockpiles when it's released on Wednesday, according to a Bloomberg survey. Continue reading "Alphabet Pushes NASDAQ To Record High" →