Valens Market Phase Cycle Macro Subscription

Access to monthly newsletters and insights from the Valens Research team that focus on the US and global markets. This level of subscription includes the following access through the Valens Research portal:

Access to the monthly Market Phase Cycle Macroeconomic analysis of US and major global regions, and access to historic Market Phase Cycle reports
Distribution of The Litman Letter – Research and analysis penned by Chief Investment Strategist, Professor Joel Litman on topical macro and financial analytics issues, and access to historic Litman Letters
Valens Aggregate ETF and Mutual Fund Embedded Expectations reports on widely followed investment vehicles, to help investors identify asset allocation related investing opportunities
Aggregate analytics of Valens proprietary research surrounding corporate profitability, aggregate valuations, earnings and cash flow quality, credit markets, and management sentiment data

Better Financial Statement Analytics, Better Signals, Better Decisions

Identify fundamental equity, credit, and macro insights based on Valens’ Uniform Accounting (UAFRS) newsletters

“...insights are needed to connect core principles of wealth creation to both reported financial performance and firm valuations in the stock market. They've put it all together for you...”

—Bartley J. Madden, Author of the book, "CFROI Valuation: A Total System Approach to Valuing the Firm"

“...what we as educators and thought leaders should embed in our curricula and teachings in business schools throughout our education programs...”

Arthur Kraft, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

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Valens Research Web App Full Access

Access to all of Valens newsletters, and also access to single company analysis on the Valens Research app, including access to screening tools, performance and valuation analysis, individual company reports, and all the tools an investor needs to power their own investment research process:

All of Valens reports on individual equities and credits globally for current and historic reports
Ability to use Uniform Accounting performance and valuation tools to perform independent research and valuation analysis on any of the 6,000+ companies in the Valens Research database globally. This includes analyzing historic corporate performance, inputting forecast scenarios to understand equity valuations, comparing company performance and valuation versus peers, and analyzing a company’s intrinsic credit risk
Screening tools to use UAFRS metrics to screen for potential investment opportunities and companies with mispriced valuations and trends in fundamentals
Valens Research analyst team for support
All Valens current and historic newsletters, consistent with the Valens Research Newsletter subscription

Access to all of Valens equities, credit, and macro newsletters through the Valens Research portal, and access to full history of past newsletters:

Valens’ weekly Valens Equities Insight & Inflection equity newsletters that highlight the most compelling research the Valens team has written in the prior week, Valens’ top picks, management sentiment trends, and aggregate trends in corporate communication and valuation
Valens’ weekly UAFRS vs As-Reported equity newsletter that highlights the largest dislocation the Valens Research team is seeing on a weekly basis between Uniform Accounting and As-Reported metrics
Valens’ weekly Valens Equities Idea Highlight equity newsletter that focuses on Valens’ top conviction long idea each week from the Valens Conviction Long idea list, and why the name appears to have significant fundamental mispricing and why the market is likely to start to recognize the company’s superior fundamentals
Valens’ quarterly Conviction Long Idea List of Valens top 20-30+ long equity ideas, based on Uniform Accounting analysis and the Valens Research analyst team’s fundamental research
The Valens Credit Weekly Insights report, where the Valens Research team highlights our top corporate credit insights each week. This includes highlighting the top dislocations the team is seeing each week, the most compelling reports the Valens Research team has written each week, quantitative credit screens, aggregate credit market analysis, and a list of Valens Credit Ratings
The Market Phase Cycle and all other macro reports granted through the Market Phase Cycle subscription

Valens Research Newsletter Subscription

“…allows the investor to judge the ability of companies to create lasting value and should be part of any investor's stock selection process...”

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—Belverd E. Needles, Jr., PhD. CPA, Ernst & Young Distinguished Professor of Accountancy, DePaul University, Past President of IAAER

“…provides the finance leader with a good idea on the key elements of a strategy for your business and personal career aspirations... very practical...”

—Kirk Ho, Former Senior Regional Finance Director, Crocs

There is a very dark side to financial statement reporting.

According to the highest-ranking financial statement experts, GAAP and IFRS accounting are “misclassified” and “likely to be misunderstood,” as “an erosion in the quality of earnings...and financial reporting” is “giving way to manipulation...and illusion.”

Uniform Adjusted Financial Reporting Standards (UAFRS) enable investors and analysts to see the economic reality of corporate profitability and valuation. It provides a cleaner, more reliable, more useful picture of operating earnings, cash flows, assets, returns, and obligations of a firm -- especially when comparing it against its peers.

The impact on equity research, corporate credit, and macroeconomic analysis is material and decision-changing.

We have 3 tiers of subscription options depending on your requirements...

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.

Register to see for yourself the difference you can have in time-saved, portfolio torpedoes avoided, and opportunities capitalized on through our dedication to enhance your analysis.

Dig into the drivers of corporate performance, valuations, and risk with superior accounting analytics.

GAAP & IFRS: Misclassified, Misunderstood, Illusion?

Valens Research has shown that even in the most simple examples, that the growing complexity of financial statements has made these issues in earnings quality worse, not better, over time. For instance, “Big Bath” activities are pronounced and increasingly more active. The rules of accounting allow for write-offs at somewhat arbitrary times elected by the management of the company. So, in a bad year of economic activity, companies will take significant one-time charges, write-offs and expenses of various kinds. This makes a bad year look very, very bad, and thereby ensuing years look much better than otherwise.

One of the more popular cases in our seminars has been seen in the big bath charges of 2009. Specifically, in 2009, corporate earnings of large non-financial companies fell by 95%. While the stock market collapsed, it didn’t fall by a similar rate, thankfully.

As aggregate corporate earnings recovered nearly 20X over the next 2-3 years, the stock market recovered, however not by rising 20X.

Some finance practitioners smartly note that the market values companies on many years of earnings, not just one, resulting in the lower volatility of the stock market relative to earnings. This observation is no doubt true. However, we can take a closer look of what kinds of charges and expenses actually drove the big drop in earnings in 2009 and subsequent rise in the following years.

This dramatic swing in earnings was not due simply to poor economic activity. It was the result of a concerted effort by management teams, each following the rules of GAAP and IFRS, to recognize any bad charges, bad expenses, bad investments in one year, even if the actual cash expenditures of those failing activities occurred over several years.

Valens Research specifically targets special items, special charges, divestiture accounting, and other similar “big bath” issues including the ones that flow into the calculation of “operating earnings.”

The result is a far cleaner, more accurate view of corporate profitability and earnings quality and balance sheet quality. Valuation measures and discounted cash flow analyses are far more reliable when using higher quality inputs of actual economic activity of the firm.

—SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, during his tenure as the longest-running chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, at a Speech at the NYU Center of Law and Business, titled “The ‘Numbers’ Game,”

“Increasingly, I have become concerned that the motivation to meet Wall Street earnings expectations may be overriding common sense business practices. Too many corporate managers, auditors, and analysts are participants in a game of nods and winks. In the zeal to satisfy consensus earnings estimates and project a smooth earnings path, wishful thinking may be winning the day over faithful representation.

As a result, I fear that we are witnessing an erosion in the quality of earnings, and therefore, the quality of financial reporting. Managing may be giving way to manipulation; Integrity may be losing out to illusion.

Many in corporate America are just as frustrated and concerned about this trend as we, at the SEC, are. They know how difficult it is to hold the line on good practices when their competitors operate in the gray area between legitimacy and outright fraud.”

—Barry J. Epstein, Author of the GAAP Guide, the IAS Guide, the IFRS Guide and one of the most sought after experts on accounting research and accounting malpractice

“…the FASB and the IASB have jointly made progress on converging U.S. GAAP and IFRS. A transition of this magnitude is likely to prove to be a challenge and could, for those not prepared, easily result in misapplication… The fact that IFRS provides more opportunity for the application of judgment… only adds to the risk for those not fully ready for this undertaking.”

—From the actual Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 95 requiring the adoption of the Statement of Cash Flows, of which three of the seven FASB members strongly dissented against passing, for many of the aforementioned reasons. (from left to right: Lauver, Swieringa, and Leisenring) Amazing that such a major change in the financial reporting requirements of the world could pass with just a simple majority of seven members.

“Mr. Lauver believes the internal inconsistencies in the provisions… concerning the classification of cash flows identified in the preceding paragraphs result from putting other objectives ahead of the Statement's stated objective of providing relevant information about cash receipts and payments.

...this Statement… attempts to establish net cash from operating activities as an alternative performance indicator, an objective that he believes is undesirable. Further, that objective makes each of the three categories misleading by excluding from investing and financing categories cash receipts and payments that stem from investing and financing activities and ought to be included in those categories.

The result is that none of the three required categories of cash flows is aptly named and all of them are, therefore, likely to be misunderstood.”

The distortions include the decision of the four of seven members of FASB at the time to not classify interest expenses or leasing expenses as financing activities. To any student of finance this has to appear either terribly confusing or downright laughable.

Over the years, with many FASB statements, a major problem has continued in FASB members’ individual understanding of who the user of the financial statements might actually be.

Banking and leasing industries might consider interest expense and leasing part of operations as they are in the business of providing financing as part of normal operations. No other industry group would see interest or leasing cash flows as anything other than financing, right beside dividends paid or debt repaid.

Since then, IFRS accounting rules have sought to remove many of the misclassifications in the Statement of Cash Flows. The failure of US GAAP to have such similar improvements has created even more inconsistency across financial reporting analysis. Valens Research restates the Statement of Cash Flows, accurately categorizing cash flows, consistently and comprehensively.

Review Valens proprietary UAFRS analysis on global equities and credit for uncovering market mispricings

Leverage Uniform Accounting to screen on better metrics for your idea generation process

Save time and resources by using UAFRS metrics and the Valens Research app to power your own research and analysis

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