March 6, 20240Comments

Getting the Footnotes Data to Calculate Core Earnings During 10-K Filing Season

This week’s Filing Season Finds report highlights how hidden and reported unusual items can materially understate true profits.

by Kyle Guske II, Senior Investment Analyst, MBA

July 14, 20210Comments

Key Takeaways From Banks’ 2Q21 Earnings: Bloomberg TV

We joined Bloomberg Markets: America on Tuesday, July 13.

by Matt Shuler, Investment Analyst II

April 21, 20210Comments

These Stocks Remain Undervalued Post 1Q21 Earnings

We’re reiterating three Long Ideas that recently reported calendar 1Q21 earnings.

by Matt Shuler, Investment Analyst II

March 7, 20190Comments

An Unusual Tax Benefit Is Today’s Filing Season Find

From yesterday's research, our analysts parsed 29 10-K filings and collected 2,178 data points. In total, they made 491 forensic accounting adjustments with a dollar value of $137 billion.

by Sam McBride

April 30, 20180Comments

Danger Zone: Investors Who Trust Wall Street

It’s no secret that Wall Street research is conflicted due to the hundreds of millions of dollars it earns from underwriting debt and stock offerings.

by Kyle Guske II, Senior Investment Analyst, MBA

November 8, 20170Comments

Betting on the Future of Wealth Management

This wealth management business delivers consistent profitability and has invested in technology to fuel significant growth.

by Sam McBride

October 5, 20171Comments

Big Banks Will Win the Fintech Revolution

Large incumbent financial firms will continue to control the bulk of the value in the industry, but the structure of the value chain and the way these firms compete will change drastically.

by Sam McBride

June 27, 20170Comments

Value Investing Is Not Dead, But It Is Harder

We think today’s market is the best in many years for value investors, the real value investors, that is. The real value investors analyze footnotes and balance sheets in addition to income statements.

by Sam McBride

December 5, 20160Comments

Danger Zone: Advisers Who Don’t Fulfill Fiduciary Duties

Clients are more educated than ever. There is more transparency into advisory practices than ever. It’s going to be awfully hard for advisors to win new business if they cannot tell clients they will act in the clients’ best interests.

by Kyle Guske II, Senior Investment Analyst, MBA

July 21, 20160Comments

The Future of Wealth Management And Morgan Stanley’s $28 Billion Opportunity

The big banks still have significant advantages. Their brand names, financial capital, advisor networks, and large client bases give them the opportunity to leverage the innovations of startups and become the biggest winners in this new wealth management model.

by Sam McBride

March 26, 20153Comments

Ranked: Our Top 10 ETFs

The following is a list of our top 10 ETFs that have over $100 million in assets under management (AUM), and that are not leveraged.

by Kyle Guske II, Senior Investment Analyst, MBA

January 15, 20150Comments

David Trainer Explains Why Big Banks Are No Longer an Attractive Investment

David Trainer discusses why big banks are no longer an attractive investment.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

November 26, 20130Comments

Danger Zone: Momentum Investors and the Financial Sector

As regulators dole out punishments that fit the crimes, they are finally closing many of the illegal trading loopholes that have driven so much of Wall Street profits over the past decade.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

October 10, 20130Comments

New Stocks Make Most Attractive/Dangerous Lists

October sees 13 new stocks make our Most Attractive list and 16 new stocks fall into the Most Dangerous category. Our Most Attractive stocks have high and rising return on invested capital (ROIC) and low price to economic book value ratios. Most Dangerous stocks have misleading earnings and long growth appreciation periods implied in their market valuations.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

August 23, 20130Comments

Discontinued Operations – Valuation Adjustment

There is one last adjustment we must make involving discontinued operations: adding net assets from discontinued operations to shareholder value. Because discontinued operations are parts of a company being held for sale, the value of the net assets from these discontinued operations approximate the cash the company will receive from the sale. This cash will then be available for distribution to shareholders.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

July 15, 20130Comments

Best & Worst ETFs & Mutual Funds: Financials Sector

The Financials sector ranks tenth out of the ten sectors as detailed in my Sector Rankings for ETFs and Mutual Funds report. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 44 ETFs and 234 mutual funds in the Financials sector as of July 10, 2013.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

July 9, 20132Comments

Discontinued Operations Removed from Invested Capital – Invested Capital Adjustment

Most investors would never know that discontinued operations distort GAAP numbers by over-stating assets on balance sheets and distorting the picture of a company’s ability to generate a return on that capital.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

June 17, 20130Comments

Non-Operating Income Hidden in Operating Earnings – NOPAT Adjustment

Non-operating items in operating income are unusual gains that don’t appear on the income statement because they are bundled in other line items. Without careful footnotes research, investors would never know that these non-recurring income items distort GAAP numbers by artificially raising operating earnings.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

June 11, 20130Comments

Danger Zone 6/10/13: “Passive” Investors

Passive investors are in the Danger Zone for not recognizing that they are actually active investors.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

May 31, 20130Comments

“Index” Label Myths

The word “index” in an ETF label does not always mean that investors are getting the specific exposure they seek. Diligence on ETF holdings is necessary despite what the providers might have you believe. Below I dispel the following myths concerning index ETFs.

by David Trainer, Founder & CEO

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