Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2019 06 05

HOLX currently trades near recent averages relative to UAFRS-based (Uniform) Earnings, with an 18.5x Uniform P/E. At these levels, the market is pricing in expectations for Uniform ROA to decline from 36% in 2018 to 16% in 2023, accompanied by 10% Uniform Asset growth. Analysts have similar expectations, projecting Uniform ROA to decline to 28% in 2020, accompanied by immaterial Uniform Asset growth. However, management is excited about the efficacy of their products, and confident in the margin contribution of new product sales. Should HOLX just sustain profitability above 10-year lows, as positive management sentiment would suggest, upside would be warranted.

EFX Q1 2019 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA expansion, but management has concerns about revenue declines, market weakness, and security

LEN Q1 2019 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA compression, but management appears optimistic about homebuyer trends, internet leads, and their backlog

MYL Q1 2019 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Strong fundamentals imply market expectations for a Uniform ROA compression to historical lows is far too bearish, even though management is concerned about near-term outlook

AGN, ALGN, AXL, BA, BKNG, CSTM, IT, KBH, KO, MCO, MMM, MO, MSFT, NVDA, TDG, V, VRSK, XYL
Underlyings
3M COMPANY

3M is a technology company. The company has four segments: Safety and Industrial, which consists of personal safety, industrial adhesives and tapes, abrasives, closure and masking systems, electrical markets, automotive aftermarket, and roofing granules; Transportation and Electronics, which consists of electronics, automotive and aerospace, commercial solutions, advanced materials, and transportation safety; Health Care, which includes medical solutions, oral care, separation and purification sciences, health information systems, drug delivery systems, and food safety; and Consumer, which consists of home improvement, stationery and office supplies, home care, and consumer health care.

Align Technology Inc.

Align Technology is a medical device company engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of Invisalign? clear aligners and iTero? intraoral scanners and services for orthodontics, restorative and aesthetic dentistry. The company's segments are: Clear Aligner, which includes the Invisalign System, a method for treating malocclusion based on a proprietary computer-simulated virtual treatment plan and a series of doctor-prescribed, custom manufactured, clear plastic, removable aligners; and Scanners and Services, which includes Intraoral scanning that enables the dental practitioner to create a 3D image of the patient's teeth (digital scan) using a handheld intraoral scanner.

Allergan plc

Altria Group Inc

Altria Group is a holding company. The company's subsidiaries include: Philip Morris USA Inc., which is engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes; John Middleton Co., which is engaged in the manufacture and sale of machine-made cigars and pipe tobacco; Sherman Group Holdings, LLC and its subsidiaries, which are engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and the sale of cigars; and UST LLC, which through its subsidiaries, including U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company LLC and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Ltd., is engaged in the manufacture and sale of smokeless tobacco products and wine. The products of the company's tobacco subsidiaries include smokeable tobacco products and machine-made cigars.

AMERICAN AXLE & MANUFACTURING HLDGS

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings is a supplier to the automotive industry. The company designs, engineers and manufactures driveline and metal forming products. The company's business is organized into Driveline and Metal Forming segments. Driveline products consist primarily of front and rear axles, driveshafts, differential assemblies, clutch modules, balance shaft systems, disconnecting driveline technology, and electric and hybrid driveline products and systems. Metal Forming products consist primarily of axle and transmission shafts, ring and pinion gears, differential gears and assemblies, connecting rods and variable valve timing products.

BOEING COMPANY (THE)

The Boeing is an aerospace firm. The company's segments include: Commercial Airplanes, which develops, produces and markets commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, mainly to the commercial airline industry; Defense, Space and Security, which engages in the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for strike, surveillance and mobility, vertical lift, and commercial derivative aircraft; Global Services, which provides supply chain and logistics management, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, and data analytics and digital services; and Boeing Capital, which manages overall financing exposure.

Booking Holdings Inc.

Booking Holdings provides travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The company's brands include: Booking.com and Rentalcars.com, in which Booking.com provides booking online accommodation reservations, based on room nights booked, and Rentalcars.com provides online rental car reservation services; KAYAK, which provides an online price comparison service; Priceline, which provides consumers hotel, rental car and airline ticket reservation services, and vacation packages and cruises; Agoda, which is an online accommodation reservation service; and OpenTable, which provides online restaurant reservation services to consumers and reservation management services to restaurants.

Coca-Cola Company

Coca-Cola is a nonalcoholic beverage company. The company owns or licenses and markets nonalcoholic beverage brands, which it groups into the following category clusters: sparkling soft drinks; water, enhanced water and sports drinks; juice, dairy and plant-based beverages; tea and coffee; and energy drinks. The company's nonalcoholic sparkling soft drink brands are Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite. The company markets, manufactures and sells beverage concentrates and syrups, including fountain syrups; and finished sparkling soft drinks and other nonalcoholic beverages. The company's segments are Europe, Middle East and Africa; Latin America; North America; Asia Pacific; Global Ventures; and Bottling Investments.

Constellium SE Class A

Constellium N.V. designs and manufactures a range of innovative specialty rolled and extruded aluminum products, serving primarily the aerospace, packaging and automotive end-markets. Co. has a strategic footprint of manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Europe and China. Co.'s product portfolio commands higher margins as compared to less differentiated, more commoditized fabricated aluminum products, such as common alloy coils, paintstock, foilstock and soft alloys for construction and distribution. Co. organizes its business around three operating segments: Aerospace & Transportation, Packaging & Automotive Rolled Products, and Automotive Structures & Industry.

EQUIFAX INC.

Equifax Inc. is a provider of information solutions and human resources business process outsourcing services for businesses, governments and consumers. The company's services are based on databases of consumer and business information. The company uses statistical techniques, machine learning and proprietary software tools to analyze all available data, creating insights, decision-making solutions and processing services for its clients. The company also provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management. Additionally, the company provides payroll-related and human resource management business process outsourcing services in the United States of America.

Gartner Inc.

Gartner is a research and advisory company. The company's principal products and services are delivered through its three business segments: Research, which provides insights and advice across various functional areas of the enterprise through research, briefings, proprietary tools, access to the company's research personnel, peer networking services and membership programs; Conferences, which provides business personnel across an organization the opportunity to learn, share and network; and Consulting, which helps chief information officers and other senior executives driving technology-related strategic initiatives move from insight to action.

Hologic Inc.

Hologic is a developer, manufacturer and supplier of diagnostics products, medical imaging systems, surgical products and light-based aesthetic and medical treatment systems. The company's segments are: Diagnostics, which provides diagnostic products which are used to aid in the diagnosis of human diseases; Breast Health, which provides solutions for breast cancer care for radiology, pathology and surgery; Medical Aesthetics, which provides aesthetic treatment systems, including SculpSure, PicoSure and MonaLisa Touch; GYN Surgical, which includes NovaSure Endometrial Ablation System to treat abnormal uterine bleeding; and Skeletal Health, which includes the Horizon DXA, a dual energy x-ray system.

KB Financial Group Inc. ADS

KB Home

KB Home is a homebuilding company. The company builds a variety of homes designed primarily for first-time and first move-up, as well as second move-up and active adult homebuyers, including attached and detached single-family residential homes, townhomes and condominiums. The company's financial services operations provide various insurance products to its homebuyers in the markets where it builds homes and provide title services in certain of those markets. The company's financial services operations also provide mortgage banking services, including residential consumer mortgage loan originations, to its homebuyers indirectly through KBHS Home Loans, LLC, a joint venture the company formed with Stearns Lending, LLC.

Lennar Corporation Class A

Lennar is a homebuilder in the United States, an originator of residential and commercial mortgage loans, a provider of title insurance and closing services and a developer of multifamily rental properties. The company's homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes as well as the purchase, development and sale of residential land directly and through unconsolidated entities in which it has investments. The company operates under the Lennar brand name. The company creates and participates in joint ventures that acquire and develop land for its homebuilding operations, for sale to third parties or for use in the ventures' own homebuilding operations.

Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft is a technology company. The company develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The company provides an array of services, including cloud-based solutions as well as solution support and consulting services. The company also delivers relevant online advertising. The company's products include operating systems; cross-device productivity applications; server applications; business solution applications; desktop and server management tools; software development tools; and video games. The company also designs, manufactures, and sells devices, including personal computers, tablets, gaming and entertainment consoles, other devices, and related accessories.

Moody's Corporation

Moody's is a provider of credit ratings and assessment services; credit, capital markets and economic research, data and analytical tools; software solutions that support financial risk management activities; quantitatively derived credit scores; learning solutions and certification services; and company information and business intelligence products. The company's segments are: Moody's Investors Service, which publishes credit ratings on a range of debt obligations and the entities that issue such obligations in markets worldwide; and Moody's Analytics, which provides financial intelligence and analytical tools to assist businesses in making decisions.

NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA engages in graphics processing unit (GPU)-based visual computing and accelerated computing platforms. The company has two segments, GPU and Tegra Processor, which are based on a single underlying architecture. The company's GPU product brands are aimed at markets including GeForce for gamers; Quadro for designers; Tesla and DGX for artificial intelligence data scientists and big data researchers; and GRID for cloud-based visual computing users. The company's Tegra brand integrates an entire computer onto a single chip, and incorporates GPUs and multi-core CPUs to drive supercomputing for autonomous robots, drones, and cars, as well as for game consoles and mobile gaming and entertainment devices.

TransDigm Group Incorporated

TransDigm Group is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company designs, produces and supplies aircraft components for use on commercial and military aircraft. The company's segments are: Power and Control, which develops, produces and markets systems and components that provide power to or control power of the aircraft utilizing electronic, fluid, power and mechanical motion control technologies; Airframe, which develops, produces and markets systems and components that are used in non-power airframe applications utilizing airframe and cabin structure technologies; and Non-aviation, which develops, produces and markets products for non-aviation markets.

Verisk Analytics Inc

Verisk Analytics is a data analytics provider serving customers in insurance, energy and specialized markets, and financial services. The company has three segments: Insurance, which provides underwriting and ratings and claims insurance data for the United States property and casualty insurance industry; Energy and Specialized Markets, which provides research and consulting data analytics for the global energy, chemicals, and metals and mining industries; and Financial Services, which provides benchmarking, decisioning algorithms, business intelligence, and customized analytic services to financial institutions, payment networks and processors, alternative lenders, regulators and merchants.

Viatris Inc.

Visa Inc. Class A

Visa is engaged in digital payments. The company facilitates payments between consumers and businesses. The company is focused on its proprietary network, VisaNet, to provide products and services. The company provides a portfolio of business payment solutions, including small business, corporate (travel) cards, purchasing cards, virtual cards/digital credentials, non-card cross-border business-to-business payment options and disbursement accounts, covering various main industry segments around the world. The company also provides several capabilities and services, including fraud prevention and security, processing, loyalty, merchant and digital solutions, consulting and data solutions.

Xylem Inc.

Xylem is water technology company. The company designs, manufactures and services engineered solutions ranging across a variety of applications primarily in the water sector, but also in electric and gas. The company's business segments are: water infrastructure, which serves the water infrastructure sector with pump systems, filtration, ultraviolet and ozone systems and pumping solutions; Applied Water, which serves the usage applications sector with water pressure boosting systems; and Measurement and Control Solutions, which serves the utility infrastructure solutions and services sector by delivering communications, smart metering, measurement and control technologies and infrastructure technologies.

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Valens Research
Valens Research

In 2009, just as the dust was settling from the last major equity and credit market crises, we launched a boutique research firm with the intention of breaking Wall Street’s biases and broken incentives:

  • GAAP and IFRS have failed to provide rules for reliable financial statement reporting
  • Stock analyst recommendations are not grounded in disciplined financial analysis
  • Credit agencies have been set up to grossly fail in their responsibilities to investors and the public markets
  • Utter lack of willingness of major research firms to employ the the most advanced forensic analysis available

We sought to provide investors and company analysts with a source of information that changed all that.
Many years later, our business model remains because little has changed on Wall Street.

  • Corporate credit ratings remain years behind the fundamental underpinnings of company performance
  • Stock analysts continue to make recommendations with deeply inherent biases
  • Research firms have failed to break down the walls between credit, equity, and macroeconomic research
  • The governing accounting bodies have created more leeway for mis-estimates and mis-classifications as financials have become unwieldy and overwhelming

The integrity of Valens Research is founded in our disciplined processes and analytics. No “star” analysts. No corporate advisory relationships. No-nonsense opinions and recommendations.

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