This Week at MANIFEST (2/8/2019)

“A group of investors heeding the lessons of Graham, Babson and Nicholson has at least one leg up on the crowd and a better than average opportunity to generate exceptional returns.” — Our Groundhog Creed.

Super Performances

The Super Bowl is on Sunday.

Sorry Patriots fans, but if you care about the 2019 stock market, the only thing standing between you and the oblivion of an “old AFL team” winning the Super Bowl and poking the restless bear, the accompanying image of a focused Ram is it. Go Rams!

And that’s the second most important thing going down this weekend.

Our courageous band of Groundhogs have finished another revolution around the sun, the twelfth such rendition — and we’ll be crowning another repeat champion, Anna Gombar of Holly, Michigan.

Inviting Anna Gombar (and her husband Rod) to a stock selection contest is like inviting Tom Brady to a football tournament.

The results are in and the accounting team is crunching numbers, munching pizza and chugging adult beverages in the conference to compile the final results. Spoiler alert: They’re outstanding. Again. (I hope) No, we expect.

Back To The Super Bowl And All Things Commercial

What have been your favorites over the years? The Coca-Cola ad ranks as one of the best of all time. The Apple commercial is epic. And Budweiser consistently hits it out of the park with the gorgeous Clydesdales. But the E*Trade babies and the CareerBuilder Monkeys are legendary.

But — to us (particularly in Michigan) — the Eminem commercial by Chrysler stands out among the best. Ever.

• Mean Joe Greene Coke Commercial (1979)
• Apple 1984 Ad Commercial – Original Recording (1984)
• Several Clydesdale & Dalmatian Moments With Budweiser (Various)
• ETrade Baby Commercials (Various)
• CareerBuilder Monkeys (2007)
• Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial – Imported From Detroit (2011)

The S&P’s 7.9% Advance Marked Its Best Start To The Year Since 1987

Sharp Rebound. The S&P 500 had it’s best month in three years following December’s slump. Hard to think of the market gyrations over the last four months as anything but a YoYo “Walk-The-Dog” market.

MANIFEST 40 Updates

• 2. Cognizant Technology (CTSH)
• 4. Microsoft (MSFT)
• 12. Alphabet/Google (GOOG)
• 19. Visa (V)
• 27. Oracle (ORCL)
• 28. Wells Fargo (WFC)
• 36. T. Rowe Price (TROW)

Round Table Stocks

• Amazon (AMZN)
• Baidu (BIDU)
• Booking.com (BKNG)
• Cognizant Technology (CTSH)
• eBay (EBAY)
• EPAM Systems (EPAM)
• FleetCor (FLT)
• Global Payments (GPN)
• Infosys Tech (INFY)
• Microsoft (MSFT)
• PayPal (PYPL)
• SEI Investments (SEIC)
• T. Rowe Price (TROW)
• Western Union (WU)

Best Small Companies (2019 Dashboard)

The status of the 2019 Best Small Companies can be tracked at: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/best-small-2019

Investing Round Table Sessions (Video Archives)

• November 2018 (FB, FLT, IIVI)
• December 2018 (AL, IIVI, IPGP, NVDA)
• January 2019 (ARDX, EPAM, HIIQ, TJX)

Turnout Tuesday Educational Sessions

• Turnout Tuesday: What’s It All About, Alpha? (August 2018)
• Turnout Tuesday: Of Tortoises & Rabbits (October 2018)
• Turnout Tuesday: Contesting Complacency (December 2018)

Results, Remarks & References

• The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham
• Quality Effort: Tribute To Arnold Bernhard (ER, Mark Robertson, December 2014)
• The Global Use of Medicine in 2019 and Outlook to 2023 (IQVIA)
• Companies That Do Capital Allocation Right (Phil Ordway, Anabatic Fund)

Companies of Interest: Value Line (2/8/2019)

The median Value Line low total return forecast for the companies in this week’s update batch is 5.7% vs. 7.7% for the Value Line 1700 ($VLE).

Materially Stronger: Fiserv (FISV)

Materially Weaker: Sohu.com (SOHU), Ameriprise (AMP), SEI Investments (SEIC), BlackRock (BLK), Ctrip.com (CTRP), GroupOn (GRPN), Capital One (COF), Ansys (ANSS)

Discontinued:

Market Barometers

The thing very few people tell you about “overvalued” markets is that, occasionally, the fundamentals arrive to justify them. — Joshua Brown

Value Line Low Total Return (VLLTR) Forecast. The long-term low total return forecast for the 1700 companies featured in the Value Line Investment Survey is 7.7%, decreasing from 7.7% last week. For context, this indicator has ranged from low single digits (when stocks are generally overvalued) to approximately 20% when stocks are in the teeth of bear markets like 2008-2009.