Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2022 04 12
LPL Financial (LPLA) has created a powerful platform to empower independent andsmaller scale wealth advisors to compete with the big players like Merrill Lynch and
Morgan Stanley. Uniform Accounting highlights the company's operational improvements
that the market is missing, indicating equity upside.
LPL has reformulated the value proposition of being an independent RIA with its asset-light
advisor platform. Uniform ROA has expanded to new peaks above 20%, which is sustainable going forward. As it continues scaling, that growth flows directly to margin expansion, meaning Uniform ROA can continue expanding.
LPL's management is aligned to focus on EBITDA growth and customer retention, which will lead management to grow the top-line and improve margins. Given the firm's already
asset-light model, these are the right metrics to drive ROA expansion.
Management confidence in the Q4 earnings call about their advisor capabilities and secular growth trends support further ROA expansion and continued growth.
ROST Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to compress, and management may have concerns about retail pricing, store expansion, and inventory management
RMD Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand, but management may have concerns about growth, product reach, and supply chain challenges
CGNX Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to reach new peaks, but management may have concerns about product capabilities, industry, and sales
LPLA, CGNX, RMD, ROST, AES, APTV, BURL, DISH, MTD, PPL, WAT
AES is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates a portfolio of electricity generation and distribution businesses. The first business line is generation, where the company owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries. The second business line is utilities, where the company owns and/or operates utilities to generate or purchase, distribute, transmit and sell electricity to end-user customers in the residential, commercial, industrial and governmental sectors within a defined service area. In certain circumstances, the company's utilities also generates and sells electricity on the wholesale market.
Burlington Stores is a holding company. Through its indirect subsidiary, Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation sells merchandise including: women's ready-to-wear apparel, accessories, footwear, menswear, youth apparel, baby, home, coats, beauty, toys and gifts. The company operates stores under the names Burlington Stores, Cohoes Fashions, Super Baby Depot, MJM Designer Shoes and an online store. Cohoes Fashions provides products similar to those offered by Burlington Stores. MJM Designer Shoes provides moderately priced designer and fashion shoes. The Super Baby Depot stores provides baby clothing, accessories, furniture and other merchandise in the middle to higher price range.
Cognex is a provider of machine vision products that capture and analyze visual information in order to automate manufacturing and distribution tasks where vision is required. Machine vision products are used to automate the manufacture and tracking of discrete items, such as mobile phones, aspirin bottles, and automobile tires, by locating, identifying, inspecting, and measuring them during the manufacturing or distribution process. The company provides a range of machine vision systems and sensors, vision software, and industrial image-based barcode readers. The company's products also have a variety of physical forms, depending upon the user's needs.
DISH Network is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates two business segments: Pay-TV and Wireless. The company provides pay-TV services under: the DISH? brand, which consists of, among other things, Federal Communications Commission licenses authorizing the company to use direct broadcast satellite and Fixed Satellite Service spectrum, the company's owned and leased satellites, and certain other assets utilized in the company's operations; and the Sling? brand, which consists of, among other things, live-linear streaming over-the-top Internet-based domestic, international and Latino video programming services. In addition, the company invests to acquire certain wireless spectrum licenses and related assets.
LPL Financial Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in the retail financial advice market and independent broker-dealer. The company's product and solution access includes: Commission-Based Products, which include variable and fixed annuities, mutual funds, equities, and insurance, among others; Fee-Based Advisory Platforms and Support, which include wrap-fee programs, mutual fund asset allocation programs, financial planning services, and retirement plan consulting services; and Cash Sweep Programs, which manage their clients' cash balances through a money market sweep vehicle involving money market fund providers and insured sweep vehicles involving banks.
Mettler-Toledo International is a supplier of precision instruments and services. The company manufactures weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, packaging, logistics, and food retailing applications. The company also manufactures several related analytical instruments and provides automated chemistry solutions used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development. In addition, the company manufactures metal detection and other end-of-line inspection systems used in production and packaging and provides solutions for use in certain process analytics applications. The company has five segments: United States Operations, Swiss Operations, Western European Operations, Chinese Operations, and Other.
PPL is a utility holding company. Through its regulated utility subsidiaries, the company delivers electricity to customers in United Kingdom, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia; delivers natural gas to customers in Kentucky; and generates electricity from power plants in Kentucky. The company's segments are: United Kingdom Regulated, which has regulated electricity distribution operations in United Kingdom; Kentucky Regulated, which is engaged in the regulated generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity in Kentucky and Virginia, and the distribution and sale of natural gas in Kentucky; and Pennsylvania Regulated, which delivers electricity in eastern and central Pennsylvania.
ResMed is a holding company. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company is engaged in the development, manufacturing, distribution and marketing of medical devices and cloud-based software solutions that diagnose, treat and manage respiratory disorders including sleep disordered breathing, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, neuromuscular disease and other chronic diseases. The company has two operating segments: Sleep and Respiratory Care and Software-as-a-Solutions. The company's portfolio of products includes devices, diagnostic products, mask systems, headgear and other accessories, dental devices, portable oxygen concentrators and cloud-based software informatics solutions.
Ross Stores and its subsidiaries operate two brands of off-price retail apparel and home fashion stores, which are Ross Dress for Less? (Ross) and dd's DISCOUNTS?. Ross provides name brand and designer apparel, accessories, footwear, and home fashions for the entire family at savings of 20% to 60% off department and specialty store regular prices every day. dd's DISCOUNTS provides name brand apparel, accessories, footwear, and home fashions for the entire family at savings of 20% to 70% off moderate department and discount store regular prices every day. Both of the company's Ross and dd's DISCOUNTS brands target women and men between the ages of 18 and 54.
Waters is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a specialty measurement company. The company primarily designs, manufactures, sells and services high performance liquid chromatography, ultra performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry technology systems and support products, including chromatography columns, other consumable products and post-warranty service plans. In addition, the company designs, manufactures, sells and services thermal analysis, rheometry and calorimetry instruments through its TA? product line. The company is also a developer and supplier of software-based products that interface with its instruments, as well as other manufacturers' instruments.
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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