The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

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The Kraft Heinz Company  (NASDAQ:KHC)Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallFeb. 21, 2019, 5:30 p.m. ET

Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day. My name is Chelsea and I will be your operator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Kraft Heinz Company's Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call.

I will now turn the call over to Chris Jakubik, Head of Global Investor Relations. Mr. Jakubik, you may begin.

Chris Jakubik -- Head of Global Investor Relations

Hello, everyone and thanks for joining our business update.

We'll start today's call with an overview of our fourth quarter and full year results as well as our view on the path forward from Bernardo Hees, our CEO; and David Knopf, our CFO. After that Paulo Basilio, President of our U.S. zone will join us for the Q&A session.

Please note that during our remarks today, we will make some forward-looking statements that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties and these are discussed in our press release and our filings with the SEC. We will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures during the call today.

These non-GAAP measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results. And you can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation available on our website.

Lastly, as you may have seen in today's press release, we conducted an internal investigation into our procurement area with the assistance of external legal and accounting advisors and found we should have recorded $25 million in prior periods, which we booked in Q4 2018. To be clear, we do not expect this to be material to our current period or any prior period financial statements.

Now let's turn to Slide 2 and I will hand it over to Bernardo.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chris and good afternoon, everyone.

With the closing of one year and the start of a new one, I think it's best to begin our update today similar to how we do things internally, with a scorecard, to better understand where we delivered, where we did not and why. At this time last year, we set plans to drive profitable sales and consumption growth by investing in deployment of new capabilities and a strong pipeline of innovation and white space initiatives. And while we expected this to translate into near-term margin pressure in United States and Rest of the World segment. We anticipated a stronger net savings to deliver constant currency EBITDA growth for the year. Overall, we successfully drove profitable sales and consumption growth accelerated, but we fell short in delivering the net savings we expected.

From a commercial perspective, we firmly restarted organic growth. In United States, our second half performance came back to offset the self-inflicted losses from the first half of the year. We became one of the few within our industry posting real volume-driven growth, growing volume mix nearly 4%. In Canada, similar to United States, we ended the year with positive consumption growth from improvements in coffee and cheese. Our EMEA business built momentum on the back of white space gains in condiments and encouraging share trends across our U.K. base.

In Rest of the World, we are gaining traction in driving real growth with the start-up of our new (inaudible) plant in Brazil and our Cerebos acquisition in Australia and New Zealand. And our Foodservice business, on a global basis, is approaching $4 billion in sales and gaining momentum from white space initiatives in all markets.

And this leads to the second aspect of our scorecard, the significant progress we made developing, deploying a strategically advanced capabilities. We have strong returns on investment in marketing, category management and e-store sales. We continue to expand in e-commerce and reach driving 79% channel growth in United States alone and a 1/10 (ph) market share index versus traditional retail.

And we setup Springboard and evolv ventures as platforms to accelerate our innovation to consumers, to customers and find new ways to disrupt ourselves. So when you think about the sustainability of our growth, breakthrough innovation, a strong in-store activity, distribution gain and white space expansion, are all coming together. In fact, our consumption turnaround in the United States had been driven by brand-building initiatives across the portfolio, not just a few categories. We are sustaining momentum in brands where we've been successful like Heinz, Philadelphia, Oscar Mayer bacon, Classico, (inaudible) in our frozen snack category at large, all growing mid-single digits in 2018.

Turning around, other key brands like Kraft mac & cheese, Oscar Mayer hot dogs and A1 to low single-digit growth after several years of decline, stabilizing historically challenged brands like Kraft salad dressing, Mayo and our kids single-serve beverage business after years of mid-single-digit declines and building new brands into meaningful platforms of growth like (inaudible) which now $120 million platform; Devour, a $7 million brand in less than three years and Just Crack an Egg at $50 million after only 12 months.

While some of this was supported by incremental promotion and price investments to improve consumption and distribution trends. We saw strong LOIs and created a solid base of support and commercial momentum for 2019.

Where we fell short in 2018 was operations, specifically, our entire EBITDA miss was driven by net savings versus expectations within our United States supply chain. To be fair, we must first recognize that our team operate at industry-leading levels globally; in quality, with top-tier performance in the industry; in safety, with our best results ever; and in customer service, achieving industry-leading case fill rates and on-time, in-full delivery rates as we saw volumes ramp up.

The core cause of our shortfall in 2018 was forecasting the pace and magnitude of our savings curve in 2018, not merger-related synergies and not an increase in DDB cost. In fact, DDB delivered savings across all of fixed-cost packets outside of our commercial investments and helped to fund our initiatives.

To put our performance in context, we started 2018 expecting approximately 3% growth inflation, excluding key commodity costs with savings programs expected to offset gross inflation. We ended the year with approximately 3% inflation net of savings, specifically driven by higher supply chain costs and low operational savings in the United States. There is no question, we are disappointed that profitability did not ramp up with consumption gains as anticipated. We are overly optimistic on delivering savings that did not materialize by year-end. For that, we take full responsibility and we have taken steps to ensure this does not happen again by touching planning process, procedures and organizational structure.

In the end, we see three takeaways from 2018; one, we're successfully driving sustainable consumption growth; two, we have the ability to deliver top-tier organic growth at industry-leading margins; and three, we need to better plan and execute our operational net savings initiatives.

Before we outline the 2019 plans, David will provide more details on our 2018 financials.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Bernardo and hello, everyone.

As we show on Slide 3, while our overall performance fell short of our expectations, the year-on-year drivers are straightforward. Consumption-driven growth negatively impacted by cost inflation net of savings in the U.S. with tax savings offsetting lower EBITDA, higher depreciation and interest expense. From a trend perspective, there are a few important details to highlight. On the top line, consumption-driven growth momentum continued to build through Q4. For total Kraft Heinz, Q4 volume/mix growth was 4% with growth in every reporting segment driven by innovation, marketing, white space and go-to-market investments and led by improved consumption in a vast majority of U.S. categories.

Total company Q4 pricing was down 160 basis points, including 80 basis points from key commodity pass-through in the U.S. Also note that the sequential decline in pricing versus Q3 was accentuated by a deceleration in contribution from price in our Rest of World Segment. And regarding U.S. pricing trends, as Bernardo mentioned, we were happy with the returns and results on this front.

To provide more context and adjust for program timing, it's useful to understand the key drivers of U.S. pricing from a second half perspective. U.S. pricing in the second half of 2018 was down 2.4 percentage points with 1 point from passing through lower key commodity costs. So U.S. pricing net of key commodity impacts was down 1.4% in the second half. Out of this, 40 basis points of the decline was primarily related to defending our natural cheese business by closing freight debts to private label. The remaining 1 point was a combination of opportunistic price investments in support of our innovation pipeline to stimulate incremental consumption with good lift and solid returns. Looking forward, and excluding the impact of key commodity pass-through, we do not expect pricing to be down in 2019 either in the U.S. or globally.

Moving to EBITDA. We said on our last call that we expected our EBITDA growth rate to improve beginning in Q4. While this turned out directionally accurate, Q4 constant currency adjusted EBITDA was significantly below the expectations we previously outlined. As Bernardo mentioned, this was driven by shortfalls in the United States. To be more specific, while the one-off factors we outlined in Q3 by and large fell away as expected, anticipated savings did not materialize, particularly in our procurement area and to a lesser extent, we had higher-than-anticipated costs in both manufacturing and logistics.

Taken together, top line trends and bottom line results lead us to the key factors we considered over the past few months in finalizing our 2019 plans outlined on Slide 4.

And I'll hand it back to Bernardo to start it off.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Now it's time for us to focus on the year ahead, what we see in front of us and how best to grow our business for the long term. Our industry has been and is likely to remain challenged on the forefront. Continued fragmentation of consumer demand, a general lack of affordability to reinvesting brands, retail competition where assortment is likely to grow in importance and finally, in the short term, ongoing cost inflation. Given our savings shortfall and the high inflation we're seeing, we could focus on maintain or expanding margins, but risk forfeiting commercial growth and market share by slowing our pace of innovation and channel development, focusing on marketing efficiency versus incremental marketing presence and compromising talent development at a critical time. We have not and we will not. We are choosing to focus on improving our long-term growth trajectory and returns by; driving consumption and market share, leveraging next-generation capabilities for brand and categories advantage, and importantly, securing the right talent in areas critical to grow.

In fact, in light of the industry backdrop, we have concluded that there is no better time for Kraft Heinz to improve our growth profile. And looking forward, we have set three objectives for 2019; first, leverage our industry-leading margins to sustain our commercial momentum; second, more actively manage our portfolio; and third, expand (ph) our balance sheet as we continue to position Kraft Heinz for industry consolidation. I will cover our commercial growth initiative and David will outline our portfolio, capital restructure and financial expectations.

By far, the biggest and the best thing you can do to build the long-term value of our portfolio is to capture sustainable commercial growth by building on the sales momentum from 2018. And we have the stronger global pipeline we ever had to go after incremental consumer demand. In the United States, we'll be launching a record level of innovation, improving base consumption, velocities and leveraging brands and go-to-market investments.

In Canada, the priority is (inaudible) consumption in (inaudible) as well as sauces and condiments. In Europe and Rest of the World markets, white space initiatives will focus on driving incremental sauces consumption and opening new geographies. And in Foodservice, all regions have significant opportunities to gain distribution and white space.

We will support these initiatives with fully funded brand programs, taking advantage of our superior (inaudible) efficiency or cost per impression and increasing our immediate effectiveness or sales lift per impression, by deploying new creative tools in digital marketing. In a nutshell, we plan to go to market in 2019 with a stronger innovation pipeline than we ever had, backed by more marketing dollars while leveraging advantaged category managed and go-to-market initiatives to win assortment and improve distribution across all channels, including e-commerce. And we plan to do this while we maintain industry-leading margins.

Now let me turn back to David as the remaining objectives are a big part of his 2019 goals.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

I'll start with our financial expectations going forward on Slide 6. Regarding top line, we are now well positioned to continue organic net sales growth driven by incremental consumption gains. This will reflect volume/mix growth from innovation, distribution and white space initiatives and pricing actions that balance cost inflation and our market share objectives. On pricing, note that we exited 2018 at strong levels of merchandising support and distribution and price gaps are currently in a better place. So we do not expect pricing to be a drag year-on-year for 2019 as a whole. In fact, our U.S. business recently announced list price increases that are scheduled to take effect late in Q1.

From an organic growth perspective, in the very near term, Q1 is likely to decline versus the prior year due to unfavorable trade timing and a shift in Easter-related shipments to Q2 this year from Q1 last year. Trade timing in Canada, comparisons with a very strong winter soup season in the U.K. and destocking in Asia Pacific. For the year, we are targeting positive organic net sales growth with commercial gains partially offset by price elasticity. And on a nominal basis, a combination of currency headwinds and divestitures is likely to result in a 3 percentage points to 4 percentage point headwind to net sales.

Regarding profitability, we fully expect to maintain industry-leading margins. At the same time, we think it's prudent to begin the year by properly level-setting expectations. To do so as a one-off for 2019, we are breaking with our established guidance practices and setting a range for expected adjusted EBITDA of $6.3 billion to $6.5 billion for this year. This includes; commercial gains offset by stepped up support of marketing innovation, e-commerce and people; another year of low to mid-single-digit percentage non-key commodity inflation net of cost savings; as well as foreign exchange rates and the two divestitures already announced.

In addition, we currently expect to begin 2019 with the first quarter that is likely to see a high teens decline in adjusted EBITDA in percentage terms. We will be up against our toughest EBITDA comparisons for the year, particularly in light of our expected net inflation curve, stepped-up commercial spending levels and with pricing not taking effect until late Q1.

Finally, at the EPS line, while we continue to believe that we can deliver top-tier growth, it will take hold from 2020 onwards. This is because in addition to our EBITDA outlook, 2019 will see approximately $0.25 of non-operating headwinds versus 2018. This will come from a combination of several factors; $80 million of incremental depreciation expense; a roughly $120 million reduction in the other income line, mainly due to rising interest rates, increasing pension interest costs and less favorable market returns on planned assets assumed versus 2018, approximately $40 million of additional interest expense and a full year effective tax rate between 20% and 22%. Taken together, top line EBITDA and EPS drivers, while we expect to take a step backwards in 2019, we remain confident in delivering consistent profit growth from 2020 onwards, driven by fully leveraging our advantage brands, cost structures and capabilities.

The rest of our plan is focused on how we can take additional steps to improve our portfolio's growth trajectory, strengthen our balance sheet and position ourselves against inorganic opportunities. It starts with the potential for more active portfolio management, specifically through divestitures, as a way to further improve our growth and returns as well as accelerate our deleveraging.

The recent transactions we have announced India beverages and Canada natural cheese provide a good template of precedent for additional actions to exit areas with no clear path to competitive advantage and sell assets with strong valuations with some earnings dilution. We have now dedicated more resources, adding experience with Carlos Piani fully focused on our portfolio management efforts. And as we're able to execute such actions, we will look to deleverage with the proceeds, which leads to our next objective, further strengthening our balance sheet.

I think it's important to first recognize that we have the capacity to drive industry-leading cash generation along with industry-leading margins and expect to hold existing working capital and CapEx levels even as we drive the growth agenda we've outlined. In addition, given the industry backdrop and opportunities in front of us, we now see even greater strategic advantage in accelerating or deleveraging toward our ongoing 3 times leverage target and strengthening the term structure of our debt.

To do this, we're undertaking two specific actions. First, we intend to dedicate the divestiture proceeds from the sale of our India beverage and Canada natural cheese businesses to debt reduction. We also intend to do the same with proceeds from additional divestitures we are currently considering. Second, today we're announcing a reduction in our quarterly dividend to $0.40 per share or $1.60 per year, down from a rate of $2.50 per year. This will not only provide us greater balance sheet flexibility, it will also establish a base dividend that we can grow consistent with EBITDA growth over time. And we are comfortable that this level of dividend can accommodate the two divestitures we have already announced as well as those we are currently considering. These initiatives will accelerate the strengthening of an already solid balance sheet with a fully funded pension plan and continue to position Kraft Heinz for industry consolidation.

Now I'll turn it back to Bernardo to close.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, David. Before we take your questions, I think it's useful to put our progress to date, our plans and priorities, as well as our expectations beyond 2019 into context. When we put Kraft Heinz together in mid-2015, our focus through 2017 was (inaudible) necessary product renovation and supply chain integration, taking out cost that drops no benefit to our consumers, establishing, retool and routines, and testing and learning new tools to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Beginning 2018 and into 2019, we'll focus on leveraging our industry-leading margins to establish key growth pillars through innovation and white space expansion, accelerate the global deployment of advantage capabilities across all channels and geographies and now more actively managing our portfolio for better growth and returns. From 2020, we expect to see growth on both the top and bottom lines at the full leverage of our advantage brands cost structure and investments close to the P&L.

So to summarize, we have continued to invest and focus on building our highly scalable operational model to position ourselves for sustainable organic growth and returns. And doing so at a time when the need for industry to modernize and consolidate is more evident than it was five or even three years ago.

Now we will be happy to take your questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Your line is open.

Andrew Lazar -- Barclays -- Analyst

Good afternoon, everybody.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Good afternoon.

Andrew Lazar -- Barclays -- Analyst

I guess I'll kick it off with -- you mentioned, I think David that you thought that there was an opportunity for greater strategic advantage, I think were the words you used, for greater divestiture activity today than previously. I was hoping to get a little more clarity on what you meant by that. Is it a matter of just simply strengthening the balance sheet because you see more opportunities for more transformational deals now than you did before? Is it that valuation opportunities on those potential assets for sale are greater than maybe what you would have expected previously? I'm trying to get a better handle on that. Thank you.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Andrew, it's Bernardo. Let me take this part of the question. I think we're seeing a large (technical difficulty) in the industry and we are going through, commercially a good momentum, right, with acceleration in consumption, in share gains, in volumes right. Also too that you're coming out of the integration, we know more about the categories and the competitive advantage of each one of our brands than ever before. So with that in mind, our decision here was to execute the strategy on deleveraging faster so we can better position the company for future consolidation, right?

As usual, we (inaudible) than we are actually doing. But as we did in the second half of last year, we did divestiture of India beverage and the Canadian natural cheese business. I think it's a good framework for the things we are looking today and that's exactly the point there right now.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Hi, good afternoon, everyone.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Good afternoon.

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America -- Analyst

I guess two questions or two points, I guess related to the, I guess the build from -- through -- from the end of '18 through getting back to growth in 2020. One is just how much incremental investment is contemplated in your 2019 plan? So how much more are you spending in addition of -- in terms of what you stepped up in 2018?

And then second, the visibility in your business has not been very good. I think we've experienced that here in the second half. So I think it would be really helpful if you could provide a little bit more color in terms of sort of how you see a bridge to actually getting to some growth in 2020? Thank you.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi Bryan, thanks for the question, this is David. So let me step back for a second and I can break down our 2019 outlook a bit more and get a sense for our EBITDA expectations year-over-year.

So overall, we expect gains from consumption growth to be in line with the stepped-up spending behind our initiatives. So really the main drivers for the expected EBITDA decline year-over-year are a few factors; first, the net inflation that we talked about that we expect to see again in 2019; the divestitures I talked about; FX and to a lesser extent, variable compensation. So to be more specific, if you assume the midpoint of our range or roughly $700 million decline year-over-year, let me elaborate on the four main drivers behind that.

So first off, on the commercial side, again we should be neutral on the bottom line as we expect the positive contribution from further consumption gains to be in line with the stepped-up investments as we accelerate the pace of our innovation, base business performance and channel development.

Second, beyond that roughly half of the total EBITDA decline or roughly $300 million to $400 million is driven by continued inflation net of cost savings in the low to mid single-digit range consistent with what we saw in 2018. So this will be driven by another year of mid single-digit growth -- low to mid single-digit growth inflation excluding key commodities and given the recent experience, actions we've taken to replan the savings and pushing out the savings curve.

Third, we expect the combination of foreign exchange headwinds and the divestitures we've already announced that should drive another $250 million headwind to adjusted EBITDA versus 2018.

And then finally, we have an impact from variable compensation which is another roughly $80 million year-over-year. So taking together, this will put us where we saw the highest margin in the industry and we believe that is the right base to build from. So to elaborate more on why we're confident even with the miss in expectations that we saw in Q4 and the decline in EBITDA that we're seeing in 2019, let me elaborate a little bit on why we're so confident in 2020.

First on the top line, we should be very well positioned for solid organic growth globally, OK? We're already seeing real consumption-driven growth in the U.S. and globally today that we're able to create in the second half of 2018 and in 2019 we expect to further improve our consumption rate behind the largest innovation pipeline that we've ever had and more support on the core business. And we have a rapidly growing international business with significant exposure to emerging markets and white space opportunities to accelerate that growth globally.

At EBITDA, in 2019 we are spending ahead to support an even larger innovation pipeline than I mentioned and accelerating channel development, particularly in e-commerce. So the right spending in commercial support levels, capabilities and marketing will have been established this year in 2019.

And then on the cost side, the extraordinary inflation that we're seeing in 2018 and that we're now seeing in 2019 from things like tariffs and transportation should mitigate over time as we're starting to see in the spot markets today. And we're also confident that we will be able to -- we'll be in a much stronger position to manage those costs through pricing in our savings curve going forward in 2020.

And finally at EPS, our non-operating below-the-line cost that I talked about should be at run rate levels so that we can leverage the organic growth into both EBITDA and EPS growth 2020 going forward.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Bryan, just to add to what David just said, to the numbers. We are seeing a strong consumption-driven growth in our business today that we plan to accelerate and the base we're assessing for 2019 get us to the right metrics and KPIs in all our key investments, marketing, innovation supply chain, channels, digital. So with that base we are very confident as we grow the business in 2019 and '20 that EPS and EBITDA grows together with that perspective.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Zaslow with BMO. Your line is open.

Ken Zaslow -- BMO -- Analyst

Hi, good evening, everybody.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Ken.

Ken Zaslow -- BMO -- Analyst

I have one question. What are the key changes that will take place to change the planning and execution of the savings so we can become more -- so they can become more reliable and kind of put it into a better action? Are they going to be management changes, is it going to be a change to the methodology oversight? Can you talk about that?

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Ken, thanks for the question, this is David. So again, let me step back for a second and kind of walk through our Q4 performance versus our original expectations, provide a little more context and then I'll hand it over to Bernardo to provide a little more color on what we're doing differently to make sure this doesn't happen.

On the Q3 call, we did expect Q4 EBITDA growth to improve sequentially as I talked about versus the 14% year-over-year (inaudible) saw in Q3, OK? And that assumption was based on the fact that we expected transitory headwinds and one-offs in Q3 that would fall away, which would effectively bring our run rate growth to more of a high single-digit decline year-over-year. And then on top of that, we expected savings to accelerate, leading to a significant sequential improvement from Q3 to Q4.

Obviously, in the end, the transitory one-off factors did fall away as expected but we have three negative impacts in the quarter that we didn't expect. First, we had roughly a 3.5 percentage point impact of unanticipated cost headwinds, which I can explain further. Second, we did -- we didn't have any anticipated savings curve that we expected to materialize in the quarter to partially offset the inflation we're seeing. And then finally, we did have an incremental FX drag of about 1.5 percentage points in Q4 versus Q3.

So given all these factors, the year-on-year decline in Q4 is much closer than Q3 and we didn't see the sequential improvement.

With that I'll hand it over to Bernardo to answer your other question.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Ken, I think it's a very fair point and even though we're disappointed with the miss, that's pretty much focused, like David said, in the supply chain operations in United States. We did took (ph) several actions to not allow this to happen again, right? Actions in the planning process, in organizational structure and position ourselves to make sure our savings curve really match, right, the timing and the effectiveness for the year. So (inaudible) we understand the reasons of the miss and we saw in the Q4 higher cost and more volumes coming to the pipe. And we could not offset to timing of our savings curve, we did took (ph) actions, process, planning and structure to not repeat that again.

Ken Zaslow -- BMO -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hi, good afternoon, guys.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Good afternoon.

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Could you -- first just for clarification, can you provide a bit more detail on the circumstances behind the SEC subpoena on the procurement side? It sounds like it originated externally as opposed to finding something internally. So just curious for the circumstances there.

And then on the pricing front, you mentioned increases in the U.S. by the end of Q1. Can you give us a rough idea of what percentage of your business that represents? And given we've seen the price gap move up versus private label in a lot of your key product categories in the U.S. over the last few years, do you think there might need to be a broader reset of price gaps at some point, particularly with the market share momentum we're seeing at private label? Thanks.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, this is David. Thanks for the question. So, I'll answer the first part of your question and then hand it over to Paulo to U.S. pricing in the U.S.

So the Company was notified by the SEC regarding an investigation into the Company's procurement area. Following this, we conducted a very thorough internal investigation with the support of an independent law firm and accounting firm. And we determined that we should have recorded $25 million in prior periods, which we booked in Q4 2018. And to put it into context, that compares to our overall procurement spend of over $11 billion which excludes big four commodity spend. So this misstatement was not material for our current or prior year financial statements. And finally, we did implement several improvements, internal controls and took remedial measures to mitigate the likelihood that this happens again.

So with that I'll hand it over to Paulo to address pricing.

Paulo Luiz Basilio -- Unit President

Thanks, Dave. Let me start from the -- answering the private label question and then we can -- we move to the 2019 pricing. While we're seeing the private label expanding, and it's doing so at a more -- we are seeing this happening in a more restrained pace, around 0.2 points of share in Q4, it was a material step down from previous quarters that we're seeing.

And we are seeing the most pressure is mainly in areas where low commodities, excess capacity and with competition come together, mostly in our -- in some subsegments of our cheese portfolio. In natural cheese, we see also the retailers have used price matching to drive traffic. And we're being able to invest back, that was part of our price investment we'd had in the second half to narrow the price gaps. And after that we saw branded and private label share starting to stabilize. So again, we're always monitoring the value proposition of the market and where (inaudible) innovate and differentiate our brands and products on that matter.

When you think about 2019 pricing, we already have announced our pricing. We did an analysis in terms of -- to define the right part of the portfolio that we are pricing, being very cautious about the balance between sales and cost to provide the best value equation and helping to drive category growth. And we are seeing -- already announced we -- this thing is going to take effect in Q1 and we expect overall -- our overall pricing to turn positive over the course of '19.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Goldman with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Ken Goldman -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Hi, thanks so much. Bernardo, as you know, one of the bare thesis over the years on the 3G philosophy has been that I guess the intense cost-saving efforts will over the long run sort of erode brand equities. And I realize you've had a better top line lately but one could argue it took $300 million spending infusion to get there. And I think more importantly, you took a $15 billion writedown on two of your biggest brands, Kraft and Oscar Mayer. And to me that literally means the brand equity there aren't what they used to be. So when investors are looking at the consistent financial disappointments at Kraft, maybe even bring (inaudible) into the discussion, and if they ask why is the 3G belt-tightening strategy goes too far and that could damage brands, is there at least some evidence starting to point to yes there? I'm just curious for your thoughts on that.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Ken, let David talk about the impairment here that you just mentioned. Then I come back here to talk about the model that's what is implicit in your question here. Thanks for that. David, can you start?

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Bernardo. So, in terms of the impairment, the writedown was primarily reflected -- it reflected revised margin expectations and this was for really three businesses of ours; first, the Kraft natural cheese business; second, our Oscar Mayer cold cuts business where we talked about issue that we had in the first part of the year; and then third, our Canada retail business. And really the fundamental driver behind the reduction in expectations was driven by our second half performance, OK, which was primarily driven by supply chain issues that we had in the cost side as you know.

And then just to provide a little more context, since the merger, we've also seen significant pressure on valuations from a higher discount rate come into play, which was partially offset (technical difficulty) taxes, but that's really the context around the impairment.

And I'll hand over to Bernardo to answer the rest of your question.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Ken, look, we still believe in and strongly that our model is working and has a lot of potential for the future, right? First, let's remember, we continue to create with a leading industry margins, right, and now we are growing right at the same level as the top-tier companies redeem similar portfolio, right? So that's very important (inaudible) perspective. Second, the niche we have and we're acknowledging here, properly has been focused on operations, supply chain in United States. The commercial momentum with consumption growth continue to accelerate (inaudible). We think that's (inaudible) we're doing since 2018, now 2019, we can say we have the right base to be growing through consumption volumes and share at the same time, maintaining high leading (ph) margins to the industry.

Into 2020, like David highlighted to the (inaudible) numbers, right, we do believe to that base, we have been in a very solid position to be growing top line and bottom line. Not only that, we are working more actively the portfolio and now with the reduction of the dividend allowed us to have more flexibility in our balance sheet to really deleverage faster and position ourselves to more consolidation in the future that we believe is necessary and will happen with that model. And so, we are confident in the things we're doing even though we acknowledge we did have the miss in the fourth quarter like highlighted by David.

Ken Goldman -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Can I ask a very quick follow-up? David and Bernardo, thank you for that. That's helpful.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, please.

Ken Goldman -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

David, I think you mentioned that it was more of a short-term like the last couple of quarter issue with the two brands and maybe discount rates have risen. The companies generally don't take writedowns because recent performance was bad and because discount rates have risen. Isn't there something broader and longer term that usually leads to these kind of impairments?

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, that's a great question and thanks for that. Just to be clear, by far and away, the majority of the impairment, which was really concentrated in these three businesses that I mentioned, it was by far and away driven by the second half performance and the new level of margin and profitability that we're talking about versus what it was before. So the margin profile and what we established in the second half was really the key driver behind the impairment.

Ken Goldman -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Driscoll with Citi. Your line is open.

David Driscoll -- Citi -- Analyst

Great. Thank you and good evening.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Good evening.

David Driscoll -- Citi -- Analyst

I just had a couple of questions, but I think they're reasonably short. Can you give us some sense of the size of the assets that you wish to sell that haven't been announced? Would it be something like on the magnitude of 5% of the revenue base?

And then I had a question about the savings programs. I think you made a statement, David, in your script that in the forecast, the savings programs had been quote-unquote, pushed out. So I'm a little confused as to kind of why that's happening and why can't you achieve the internal savings at the same time that you're generating the revenue performance?

And then related to that, if you didn't hit the savings that you expected in the fourth quarter, don't those savings programs show up in like the first quarter of '19 or second quarter of '19, I mean, I don't think there's a -- they shouldn't disappear, but it feels like within the guidance that they did and I just may be don't understand what's happened right there. Thank you.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, David, it's Bernardo. Let me address the first part of the question. We're not discussing here size or so. What we're saying that we will work our portfolio to strengthen our balance sheet as we're doing with the dividend to have more flexibility for future consolidations as we see it. As David said, our objective is to deleverage, right, to 3 times in the middle term at a faster pace than we're doing today.

With that and then all that you have in the portfolio today, with our competitive advantage by brands and category, allowed us to be in a very good position to understand the magnitude that what we can do or we cannot do. I don't want to elaborate more than we are doing right now. With that David, can you open again the '18 and '19 to clarify here to David?

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, David, this is David. Thanks for the question. So on the savings side, we were overly optimistic on our ability to offset significant inflation in the quarter. And again that drove a significant part of the miss. So the savings miss was really a combination of two things; underdelivery from supplier negotiations and delayed manufacturing projects. And to give you a little bit of color on what some of those projects were like, they included line optimizations, yield improvements and assumed even better performance on some of our footprint plans that we discussed previously. So because of this miss, as Bernardo said, we took significant action to address our processes, planning and structure internally and simultaneously spent a lot of time and focus really revisiting our savings projects and we replanned.

As a function of that, our savings curve is being pushed out as we implement those changes, as we revisit our savings programs going forward. So that's really what's driving the delay in the savings curve and that's embedded in my 2019 expectations.

David Driscoll -- Citi -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Jason English -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Hello, good evening, folks. Thank you for squeezing me in.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Good evening.

Jason English -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Your guidance for next year suggests that the majority of the synergies you realized on consolidating Heinz and Kraft will have effectively been wiped out. In that context, I'd love to hear your thought process and rationale on continuing to pursue a strategy of consolidation. Where do you see the value creation coming from? This would certainly suggest that maybe there's not as much opportunity as someone maybe once envisioned?

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, thanks for the question, this is David. So since the merger, EBITDA has been held back by more than $1 billion versus what we had really kind of set out for. And within that we had nearly $0.5 billion of costs that we put back into the business, OK? These are costs that are different and independent from the cost that we took out in the integration, right? So most of the synergies and the integration savings that we captured were non-consumer, non-commercial related cost savings, OK? So, the synergies that we realized are very much intact.

The costs that we put in are squarely within different areas and we're putting costs in that are consumer-facing and drives commercial growth, OK? So these are things like expanding our innovation pipeline, our go-to-market infrastructure in the U.S. and international, our digital and e-commerce capabilities and while there's a significant amount of investment we put behind us, we are starting to see the returns, which is why we're growing in the second half.

On top of that, we also had significant amount of FX headwinds that also affected our sales and EBITDA trajectory and then finally, the inflation and the inability to executing it to savings curve as we talked about that.

With that I'll hand it over to Bernardo to address as well.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Jason, I actually -- as Dave said, the investments we're doing and the things we're doing are not correlated to the savings we got through the merger, that will be still here and (inaudible) more as the year goes. I actually would say the opposite. I think we are more prepared with the capabilities and we are more ready for industry consolidation to better performance in the future than we were two, three or five years ago. To that sense, I think we're having more firepower with a better balance sheet profile is important.

Jason English -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Jaffray. Your line is open.

Michael Lavery -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Good evening.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Good evening.

Michael Lavery -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Just wanted to understand, you mentioned your -- that you should be measured on organic growth and that hasn't come through the way I think people might have expected. But I think there's been forgiveness around that because you are deal guys and (technical difficulty) about the outlook?

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Michael, I'm sorry, you faded a bit there. We didn't quite hear the question.

Michael Lavery -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

(multiple speakers) deal-driven --

Christopher Jakubik -- Head Of Investor Relations

Michael, could you repeat the question? You kind of faded there a little bit.

Michael Lavery -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Yeah, sorry, no problem. You've said a couple of years ago that you should be measured on organic growth for your business and that obviously has had some struggles. You're also known as deal guys but we haven't seen a deal yet either. Can you just help us understand why somebody should be excited about the prospects from here? Is it a deal that you know you can get done? Is it organic growth or is it a combination?

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Lavery, it's Bernardo again. Look, I think if you see the second half performance of our commercial initiatives and returns of our investment, it's going to see a very positive scenario in that sense, right? We're having volumes, consumption and market share gains in the vast majorities of our categories. Even categories that have been declining for quite some time are seeing a momentum, right? And we do know there is more to come. Not only that, even with the miss of the fourth quarter, we continue to operate at industry-leading margins and we think the 2019 base that David just highlight is a base we can grow sales and EBITDA going forward. With the actions we are taking on dividend and the work we're doing in the portfolio is to manage to be successful and we are confident we can be.

We will have a balance sheet that's more flexible and more prepared for future consolidation. So in that sense, I think the commercial momentum is happening. In that sense, I think even with the miss in U.S. operations, we still have the base of the margin here that allows us from this base to build 2020 and beyond and the balance sheet flexibility for future consolidation for us to be a consolidator if the industry goes our way.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Moskow with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Robert Moskow -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Hi, thank you for the question. Bernardo, I had a question about the supply chain. It was a -- you had very poor order fill rates, I think a year or two ago you had issues in frozen potatoes, you had issues with sliced lunch meat. And now this year, we're having more supply chain issues. And the commentary that there's some cost savings going on in the supply chain, I'm still I guess uncomfortable with it because it indicates that maybe you need to try to make it more efficient. It sounds like you need a bigger investment in the supply chain. Maybe you need to expand the footprint, increase flexibility and increase capabilities. Is there going to be a big dollar investment in people and in the footprint that's necessary as part of this rebase? Thanks.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rob for the question. No, actually I think it's important to understand what did not happen in the fourth quarter was this ramp-up of the savings, right? We are in the same level of the third quarter and actually, let me put perspective a little bit to what you said. We came into 2018 as one of the best service provider in the industry. Our on-time and in-full (inaudible) like we said in the original highlight is really now at top quartile worldwide. So in that sense, the whole investment in footprint, right, capacity and service is already behind us. Do we have more -- we always have things to do and improve, but to the base that you're asking, it's actually the opposite. We did believe there was more saved timing on the savings curve and that for that we are taking full responsibility that did not materialize and they will come to life in 2019 '20 and beyond. But there is no bigger investment in supply chain, to your point, because I'm operating better or in the same level of the third quarter, with one of the best service in United States today.

With that said, let me pass over to Paulo to detail the supply chain cost here in the United States.

Paulo Luiz Basilio -- Unit President

Hi, Rob, this is Paulo. So no, I just want to reaffirm here what Bernardo was saying that 2018 was a great year for supply chain in terms of service. Think about the four pillars of supply chain; quality, safety, service and cost. It's completely fair to say that our supply chain delivered very well three of the four pillars; quality, safety and a great service to support the strong volume that we had in the year. In cost, we all (inaudible) we are not able to deliver the additional saves we expect and then we had -- we ended up having more inflation, also (inaudible) expecting the end of the year.

Robert Moskow -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Okay. I'll follow-up later. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Chris Growe with Stifel. Your line is open.

Chris Growe -- Stifel -- Analyst

Hi, good evening.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Good evening.

Chris Growe -- Stifel -- Analyst

Hi. I have two questions for you. A real quick one would be, just to be clear on the $250 million of EBITDA pressure from divestitures, does that include -- incorporate what's already happened or would also could happen going forward?

And if I could just ask a second question in relation to a comment you make in the release about your return on investment being strong in the fourth quarter and the year. Obviously, if you measured that based on market share or even top line growth, that's a fair comment. But the degree of profit that it took to achieve that growth is quite significant. And I think it would really weigh on that overall calculation of that of return on investment. So I just want to get a better sense of how you're measuring your return on investment as you call it and how to think about that going forward given the extreme cost in this quarter? Thank you.

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Chris, this is David. Thanks for the question. So I'll answer the first part and then hand it over to Paulo to address your second. So the $250 million you mentioned, approximately $70 million of that is related to the divestitures that we've made to date, OK? And then the remaining amount is really the FX headwinds that we're seeing in some of our international markets. So this does not include any future divestitures that we're considering. It only includes the divestitures that we've executed today, the two deals that Bernardo mentioned earlier.

Paulo Luiz Basilio -- Unit President

Hi. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the pricing and the return on the pricing investment that we had here. If you consider -- if you think about our second half as a whole, OK and you consider that actually we invested 1% in price when you exclude the impact from commodity and the 0.4% that we invested specifically to close the gap in the natural cheese. And you see the performance in volume that we had growing almost 4%. I think it's clear to see that even though this was only -- it was not the only lever of the volume improvement, you can see that we have a very strong return on this particular investment. But also it's important to say that our volume improvement was also supported by the much better service level as we're talking, a strong innovation and launches, renovation and additional brand and channel support, besides the high level of store activity and promotions that we are (inaudible) here.

Operator

Thank you. And this concludes today's question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back to Mr. Chris Jakubik for closing remarks.

Christopher Jakubik -- Head Of Investor Relations

Thank you everybody for joining us this evening. For analysts that have follow-up questions, myself and Andy Larkin will be available for follow-ups all evening and into tomorrow. And for those in the media with follow-ups, Michael Mullen will be available to take in calls. Thanks very much and have a great day.

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, all.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Duration: 64 minutes

Call participants:

Chris Jakubik -- Head of Global Investor Relations

Bernardo Hees -- Chief Executive Officer

David Knopf -- Chief Financial Officer

Andrew Lazar -- Barclays -- Analyst

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Ken Zaslow -- BMO -- Analyst

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Paulo Luiz Basilio -- Unit President

Ken Goldman -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

David Driscoll -- Citi -- Analyst

Jason English -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Michael Lavery -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Christopher Jakubik -- Head Of Investor Relations

Robert Moskow -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Chris Growe -- Stifel -- Analyst

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Transcript powered by AlphaStreet

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

Analysts Offer Predictions for Dana Inc’s Q1 2019 Earnings (DAN)

Dana Inc (NYSE:DAN) – Equities researchers at KeyCorp issued their Q1 2019 earnings estimates for shares of Dana in a research report issued on Monday, February 18th. KeyCorp analyst J. Picariello expects that the auto parts company will post earnings per share of $0.73 for the quarter. KeyCorp currently has a “Buy” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock. KeyCorp also issued estimates for Dana’s Q2 2019 earnings at $0.90 EPS, Q3 2019 earnings at $0.85 EPS and Q4 2019 earnings at $0.77 EPS.

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Several other research firms also recently issued reports on DAN. Zacks Investment Research raised Dana from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $18.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 15th. Barclays set a $23.00 price objective on Dana and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 4th. Wolfe Research raised Dana from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 31st. TheStreet downgraded Dana from a “b-” rating to a “c” rating in a report on Monday, October 29th. Finally, Deutsche Bank initiated coverage on Dana in a report on Thursday, December 13th. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. Dana has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $21.91.

NYSE:DAN opened at $19.97 on Thursday. Dana has a 52-week low of $12.65 and a 52-week high of $28.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.66. The firm has a market cap of $2.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.75, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.90.

Dana (NYSE:DAN) last announced its earnings results on Friday, February 15th. The auto parts company reported $0.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.66 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $1.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.95 billion. Dana had a return on equity of 33.01% and a net margin of 5.24%. Dana’s revenue was up 7.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.62 EPS.

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of DAN. Amalgamated Bank raised its position in shares of Dana by 109.5% during the 4th quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 22,742 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $310,000 after acquiring an additional 11,888 shares during the last quarter. Weber Alan W raised its position in shares of Dana by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Weber Alan W now owns 770,993 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $10,509,000 after acquiring an additional 25,000 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in shares of Dana by 4.5% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 214,545 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $2,924,000 after acquiring an additional 9,185 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its position in shares of Dana by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 36,705 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $500,000 after acquiring an additional 1,614 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Voloridge Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Dana during the 4th quarter valued at $1,404,000. 93.62% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.00%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 28th. Dana’s dividend payout ratio is 13.47%.

About Dana

Dana Incorporated provides drive and motion products, sealing solutions, thermal-management technologies, and fluid-power products to vehicle and engine manufacturer in North America, Europe, South America, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in four segments: Light Vehicle Driveline Technologies, Commercial Vehicle Driveline Technologies, Off-Highway Drive and Motion Technologies, and Power Technologies.

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Equities Analysts Issue Forecasts for Antero Midstream GP LP’s Q2 2019 Earnings (AMGP)

Antero Midstream GP LP (NYSE:AMGP) – Investment analysts at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group lowered their Q2 2019 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for Antero Midstream GP in a note issued to investors on Thursday, February 14th. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group analyst B. Blaschke now expects that the company will post earnings per share of $0.19 for the quarter, down from their prior estimate of $0.20. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group also issued estimates for Antero Midstream GP’s Q3 2019 earnings at $0.21 EPS, Q4 2019 earnings at $0.22 EPS and FY2019 earnings at $0.80 EPS.

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A number of other brokerages have also weighed in on AMGP. Raymond James decreased their target price on Antero Midstream GP from $27.00 to $19.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 19th. Credit Suisse Group dropped their price target on shares of Antero Midstream GP from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 21st. ValuEngine downgraded shares of Antero Midstream GP from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, February 4th. Finally, Zacks Investment Research lowered shares of Antero Midstream GP from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. The company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $20.50.

AMGP stock opened at $13.93 on Monday. Antero Midstream GP has a 1-year low of $10.12 and a 1-year high of $20.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.21 and a beta of 1.86.

Antero Midstream GP (NYSE:AMGP) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 13th. The company reported $0.10 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.16 by ($0.06). The business had revenue of $43.49 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.69 million. Antero Midstream GP had a return on equity of 266.96% and a net margin of 43.36%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 83.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.03 earnings per share.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.164 per share. This is a boost from Antero Midstream GP’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.14. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 31st. This represents a $0.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.71%. Antero Midstream GP’s dividend payout ratio is currently 200.00%.

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Berman Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in Antero Midstream GP during the fourth quarter worth $46,000. Bessemer Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Antero Midstream GP during the 4th quarter worth approximately $47,000. Advisor Group Inc. increased its holdings in Antero Midstream GP by 22.7% in the 4th quarter. Advisor Group Inc. now owns 5,807 shares of the company’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 1,076 shares during the last quarter. Quantamental Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Antero Midstream GP during the 4th quarter worth $68,000. Finally, Arlington Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Antero Midstream GP in the fourth quarter valued at $75,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.65% of the company’s stock.

Antero Midstream GP Company Profile

Antero Midstream GP LP owns, operates, and develops midstream energy assets in the Marcellus and Utica Shales in West Virginia and Ohio. Its assets consist of gathering pipelines, compressor stations, interests in processing and fractionation plants, and water handling and treatment assets, which provide midstream services to Antero Resources Corporation under long term fixed fee contracts.

Further Reading: Book Value Per Share in Stock Trading

CrowdCoin (CRC) Hits Market Capitalization of $36,431.00

CrowdCoin (CURRENCY:CRC) traded flat against the US dollar during the twenty-four hour period ending at 22:00 PM ET on February 18th. Over the last week, CrowdCoin has traded flat against the US dollar. One CrowdCoin coin can currently be purchased for $0.0077 or 0.00000138 BTC on popular cryptocurrency exchanges including Stocks.Exchange and Cryptopia. CrowdCoin has a total market cap of $36,431.00 and approximately $0.00 worth of CrowdCoin was traded on exchanges in the last day.

Here is how other cryptocurrencies have performed over the last day:

Get CrowdCoin alerts: Feathercoin (FTC) traded 8.4% higher against the dollar and now trades at $0.0131 or 0.00000334 BTC. GoByte (GBX) traded up 7.7% against the dollar and now trades at $0.18 or 0.00004505 BTC. Uniform Fiscal Object (UFO) traded 5.4% higher against the dollar and now trades at $0.0002 or 0.00000004 BTC. CryCash (CRC) traded 15.4% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0715 or 0.00001822 BTC. Guncoin (GUN) traded flat against the dollar and now trades at $0.0009 or 0.00000013 BTC. Innova (INN) traded 4.8% higher against the dollar and now trades at $0.0156 or 0.00000396 BTC. Dinerocoin (DIN) traded flat against the dollar and now trades at $0.0091 or 0.00000144 BTC. IPChain (IPC) traded down 0.5% against the dollar and now trades at $0.0835 or 0.00002128 BTC.

About CrowdCoin

CRC is a proof-of-work (PoW) coin that uses the NeoScrypt hashing algorithm. Its launch date was May 5th, 2013. CrowdCoin’s total supply is 5,095,340 coins and its circulating supply is 4,745,340 coins. CrowdCoin’s official Twitter account is @CrowdCoin_CRC and its Facebook page is accessible here. The official website for CrowdCoin is crowdcoin.site. The Reddit community for CrowdCoin is /r/CrowdCoinChain and the currency’s Github account can be viewed here.

Buying and Selling CrowdCoin

CrowdCoin can be purchased on the following cryptocurrency exchanges: Stocks.Exchange and Cryptopia. It is usually not possible to purchase alternative cryptocurrencies such as CrowdCoin directly using U.S. dollars. Investors seeking to acquire CrowdCoin should first purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum using an exchange that deals in U.S. dollars such as Coinbase, Changelly or GDAX. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Bitcoin or Ethereum to purchase CrowdCoin using one of the exchanges listed above.

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Timicoin (TMC) Price Tops $0.0158

Timicoin (CURRENCY:TMC) traded up 0.5% against the U.S. dollar during the twenty-four hour period ending at 23:00 PM ET on February 16th. One Timicoin coin can now be purchased for $0.0158 or 0.00000434 BTC on major exchanges. During the last seven days, Timicoin has traded 11.6% lower against the U.S. dollar. Timicoin has a market cap of $5.00 million and $1,383.00 worth of Timicoin was traded on exchanges in the last day.

Here is how related cryptocurrencies have performed during the last day:

Get Timicoin alerts: XRP (XRP) traded 0.6% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.30 or 0.00008280 BTC. Tether (USDT) traded down 0.3% against the dollar and now trades at $1.00 or 0.00027583 BTC. TRON (TRX) traded down 0.5% against the dollar and now trades at $0.0239 or 0.00000658 BTC. Stellar (XLM) traded 1.4% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0780 or 0.00002149 BTC. Binance Coin (BNB) traded 2.2% lower against the dollar and now trades at $9.03 or 0.00248750 BTC. Bitcoin SV (BSV) traded down 1.3% against the dollar and now trades at $62.01 or 0.01708062 BTC. NEO (NEO) traded 1.2% lower against the dollar and now trades at $8.15 or 0.00224510 BTC. VeChain (VET) traded 1.4% higher against the dollar and now trades at $0.0041 or 0.00000113 BTC. TrueUSD (TUSD) traded 0.2% lower against the dollar and now trades at $1.01 or 0.00027875 BTC. Holo (HOT) traded 3.5% higher against the dollar and now trades at $0.0013 or 0.00000037 BTC.

About Timicoin

Timicoin’s launch date was September 12th, 2013. Timicoin’s total supply is 317,149,560 coins. Timicoin’s official website is timicoin.io. Timicoin’s official Twitter account is @timihealth. The Reddit community for Timicoin is /r/TimiHealth and the currency’s Github account can be viewed here.

Timicoin Coin Trading

Timicoin can be bought or sold on the following cryptocurrency exchanges: LATOKEN. It is usually not currently possible to buy alternative cryptocurrencies such as Timicoin directly using US dollars. Investors seeking to trade Timicoin should first buy Bitcoin or Ethereum using an exchange that deals in US dollars such as Gemini, GDAX or Coinbase. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Bitcoin or Ethereum to buy Timicoin using one of the aforementioned exchanges.

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HubSpot (HUBS) Shares Gap Down to $171.87

HubSpot Inc (NYSE:HUBS) gapped down before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $180.24, but opened at $171.87. HubSpot shares last traded at $166.17, with a volume of 2823767 shares.

A number of research firms recently weighed in on HUBS. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of HubSpot to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 17th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of HubSpot from $138.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 8th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of HubSpot from $160.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Zacks Investment Research reissued a “hold” rating on shares of HubSpot in a research note on Tuesday, November 13th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of HubSpot in a research note on Thursday, January 24th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. The company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $170.29.

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The company has a current ratio of 3.15, a quick ratio of 3.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.37. The company has a market cap of $6.39 billion, a P/E ratio of -162.91 and a beta of 1.92.

HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 12th. The software maker reported $0.37 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of ($0.17) by $0.54. HubSpot had a negative net margin of 13.43% and a negative return on equity of 19.13%. The firm had revenue of $144.02 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $137.48 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.12 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 35.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that HubSpot Inc will post -0.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

In related news, General Counsel John P. Kelleher sold 389 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.54, for a total transaction of $62,450.06. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Brian Halligan sold 15,277 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.18, for a total transaction of $1,881,820.86. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 680,046 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $83,768,066.28. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 46,763 shares of company stock valued at $6,156,940 in the last three months. 9.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. NY increased its holdings in HubSpot by 361.8% in the 4th quarter. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. NY now owns 11,767 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,479,000 after buying an additional 9,219 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC bought a new position in HubSpot in the 4th quarter valued at about $598,000. 1832 Asset Management L.P. increased its holdings in HubSpot by 2,435.9% in the 4th quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 388,000 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $47,549,000 after buying an additional 372,700 shares during the period. Lido Advisors LLC bought a new position in HubSpot in the 4th quarter valued at about $275,000. Finally, North Peak Capital Management LLC bought a new position in HubSpot in the 4th quarter valued at about $15,397,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.19% of the company’s stock.

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HubSpot Company Profile (NYSE:HUBS)

HubSpot, Inc provides a cloud-based marketing and sales software platform for businesses in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Its software platform includes integrated applications, such as social media, search engine optimization, blogging, Website content management, marketing automation, email, sales productivity, CRM, analytics, and reporting.

See Also: What is intrinsic value?

Stock Market News: Investors Await Berkshire Buys While Amazon Thinks Electric

The stock market continued to do well Wednesday morning, as investors were generally upbeat about the prospects for compromise in Washington and a favorable resolution to trade disputes between the U.S. and China. As of 11:45 a.m. EST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) was up 74 points to 25,499. Among other major benchmarks, the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) was higher by 6 points to 2,750, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) gained 5 points to 7,420.

Warren Buffett is one of the most famous investors in history, and many people follow Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) for insight into Buffett's latest vision. Soon, Buffett watchers will be able to get the latest information on recent Berkshire moves. At the same time, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) continues to make strategic plays of its own, and the latest could involve a move in a new direction: electric vehicles.

Waiting for Buffett's latest trades

Every three months, institutional investors that manage portfolios have to file a disclosure with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealing certain positions that they own. Berkshire is just one of many companies that make quarterly filings on Form 13F, and those reports get scrutinized to see what changes have happened with Buffett's portfolio during the three months since the previous quarter's report.

Warren Buffett. Image source: The Motley Fool.

Buffett's last report indicated that the Oracle of Omaha was doubling down on Berkshire's holdings in the banking sector. Not only did he add to several positions that Berkshire already owned in the financial sector, but he also bought into some new positions in the sector. Given the relatively low valuations among banks compared to other parts of the market, Buffett's moves were consistent with his value investing approach.

This time around, investors are curious to see what moves Buffett will make. A continued emphasis on banks is a safe bet, but some also wonder how Berkshire will respond to the big share-price decline in Apple, which has become one of the company's most important investments. With the deadline for filing coming later this week, investors won't have to wait too long to see what Buffett thinks are the most promising stocks in the market right now. Berkshire shares are up just a bit today, but its roughly 10% gains since the December market bottom show new confidence among shareholders.

Amazon looks to go mobile -- in another way

Meanwhile, Amazon shares also moved slightly higher in the wake of news surrounding the e-commerce giant. Reports indicate that Amazon is looking to partner with automaker General Motors (NYSE:GM) to make a significant investment in a Michigan-based start-up called Rivian Automotive. Rivian's claim to fame is its work in developing electric pickup trucks, and the reported investment would put a value of roughly $1 billion to $2 billion on Rivian.

For Amazon and GM, an investment of that size isn't all that significant, but it signals a willingness to embrace new vehicle technology and challenge established electric vehicle specialist Tesla. Rivian hopes to start selling its R1T model in late 2020, and while that would give Tesla plenty of time to cement its first-mover advantage, it doesn't force investors to wait long to see the fruits of its investment take shape. For Amazon, staying on the cutting edge of transportation technology is important as it seeks to maximize its options for deliveries in its core e-commerce business while also maintaining the flexibility to pursue unrelated projects. Investors shouldn't be surprised to see the tech giant dipping its toes further into high-tech innovation, and Amazon shareholders can expect further such moves for the foreseeable future.

IFP Advisors Inc Sells 1,950 Shares of Sierra Wireless, Inc. (SWIR)

IFP Advisors Inc lowered its stake in Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIR) (TSE:SW) by 27.2% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 5,215 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 1,950 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc’s holdings in Sierra Wireless were worth $71,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in SWIR. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in shares of Sierra Wireless by 80.2% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,437,397 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $38,998,000 after buying an additional 1,084,575 shares during the last quarter. Foundry Partners LLC bought a new stake in Sierra Wireless during the third quarter valued at about $5,259,000. Cornerstone Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Sierra Wireless during the third quarter valued at about $738,000. Palo Capital Inc. bought a new stake in Sierra Wireless during the third quarter valued at about $821,000. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Sierra Wireless during the third quarter valued at about $9,032,000. Institutional investors own 28.51% of the company’s stock.

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Sierra Wireless stock opened at $15.69 on Wednesday. Sierra Wireless, Inc. has a 1-year low of $12.67 and a 1-year high of $22.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 1.69 and a quick ratio of 1.41. The company has a market capitalization of $563.01 million, a PE ratio of 27.05, a PEG ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 2.39.

A number of equities research analysts have commented on SWIR shares. Zacks Investment Research raised Sierra Wireless from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, January 10th. ValuEngine cut Sierra Wireless from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 2nd. BidaskClub raised Sierra Wireless from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 15th. First Analysis cut Sierra Wireless from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $31.00 to $25.00 in a report on Friday, November 9th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity raised their price target on Sierra Wireless from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. The company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $22.86.

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Sierra Wireless Profile

Sierra Wireless, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in building the Internet of Things (IoT) with intelligent wireless solutions in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in three segments: Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, and Cloud and Connectivity Services.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SWIR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIR) (TSE:SW).

How Marijuana Giant Canopy Growth Became Constellation Brands' Brightest Star

Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) wasn't always a household name among investors. Even with high-profile holdings in the beer and spirits world, including brands like Corona and Modelo, Constellation largely took a back seat to other players in the alcohol industry. Yet Constellation's big claim to fame recently was its early decision to invest heavily in cannabis pioneer Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC), and outgoing Constellation CEO Rob Sands has worked hard in his efforts to make marijuana a key part of the beer and spirits maker's overall growth strategy.

Recently, Sands and incoming CEO Bill Newlands, who'll take over Sands' role on March 1, talked with investors about their vision for Constellation's future. Canopy Growth will play a huge role in that vision, and their insight provides some valuable information for cannabis investors to use in assessing not only Canopy but other players in the budding industry.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Canopy's numbers are ramping up

Canopy Growth is committed to achieving their CA$1 billion revenue run rate target within the next 18 months.

-- Incoming CEO Bill Newlands

One challenge that cannabis companies have had is ramping up their production and sales capacities quickly enough to take advantage of new opportunities in the marijuana market. In particular, as we'll see in more detail below, opening of the Canadian market to recreational cannabis sales has been a huge growth driver for the worldwide industry, but it's introduced challenges involved in logistics, regulatory compliance, and simply meeting the incredible demand among consumers getting their first chance to purchase products legally. The benefit of having Constellation on its side is that Canopy can get valuable advice and support to grow its capacity quickly, and Newlands is optimistic that the cannabis company is on the right track to maintain its leadership role.

2. The Canadian opportunity is huge

We are seeing strong consumer demand in the Canadian recreational cannabis market. According to the Canadian government, as of the third quarter of calendar 2018, Canadians spent at a run rate of almost $6 billion on cannabis products, the majority of which were purchased illegally for nonmedical use. As we've discussed, we believe the emerging cannabis space represents one of the most significant global growth opportunities of the next decade, and frankly, our lifetime.

-- Newlands

Canada's recreational pot market just opened up in October, but already, the excitement that the move has generated in the Great White North has been a great indicator of how much pent-up demand there is among consumers. Extrapolating that excitement to other international markets makes a lot of sense, and given Constellation's global scope, it can help Canopy make inroads in areas that other cannabis companies would find difficult.

3. Canopy is already getting ready to move south -- in force

The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill was recently passed, with one of the key components of the legislation being legalizing production of industrial hemp, including CBD, a nonpsychoactive cannabis compound that is believed to have significant medical benefits. ... Canopy Growth provides a single platform for Constellation to address all global markets and product formats, including both CBD and THC. They announced in a press release earlier this week their position and advantages relating to the U.S. market entry for CBD products, and they are currently awaiting FDA guidelines pertaining to the sale of these products in the U.S.

-- Newlands

As lucrative as Canada will be for Canopy, the real jewel of the cannabis world is the U.S. market, and Canopy was quick to move after the recent legalization of hemp in the U.S. Farm Bill. The hemp production facility in upstate New York, in which it recently invested $150 million, is located conveniently close to Canopy's existing production facilities just across the border in Ontario, and Constellation has complete confidence that Canopy can navigate the regulatory waters quickly to make the most of the new opportunity.

4. Constellation will use its power to help Canopy

Our Canopy investment is like a venture investment, which positions us to use our capabilities in building brands in a regulated industry to take advantage of the legitimization of an emerging $200 billion global industry.

-- CFO David Klein

It's important for Constellation shareholders to remember that the spirits company is treating its role with Canopy as an investment, but it's also one in which Constellation intends to be an active investor. With its huge existing position and the likelihood that it will exercise its warrants to purchase more shares of Canopy by 2021, Constellation has every incentive to help the global marijuana market grow to its full potential.

5. Constellation itself is a way to bet on marijuana

I'd like to mention that my brother Richard and I recently acquired in excess of 1 million shares to take advantage of the tremendous value that Constellation's stock currently represents.

-- Outgoing CEO Rob Sands

Sands might be turning over the reins to Newlands, but he's still confident in the business his family turned into an empire. After hitting new highs early in 2018, Constellation's shares have seen a significant pullback, and some investors fear that its core beer and spirits business could see continuing struggles in the near future. Yet Sands is confident about the role that Canopy will play in Constellation's overall growth strategy, and that bodes well for those who prefer the more conservative route of investing in the established Constellation rather than the upstart Canopy Growth.

Keep your eyes on Constellation

Constellation was a groundbreaker in the cannabis industry, and Canopy Growth has made big moves to capitalize on its opportunities. Together, Constellation and Canopy have a lot of promise when it comes to tapping into the growing marijuana market as it expands worldwide.

Restaurant Brands International Earnings: QSR Reports Q4 EPS Beat

The Restaurant Brands International earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2018 has beating some estimates.

Source: Ian Rutherford via Flickr (modified)

Restaurant Brands International (NYSE:QSR) reported earnings per share of 68 cents for the fourth quarter of the year. This is a decrease from the company’s earnings per share of 71 cents from the same time last year. However, it still gives QSR stock a slight boost today by coming in above Wall Street’s earnings per share estimate of 67 cents for the quarter.

Net income reported in the Restaurant Brands International earnings release for the fourth quarter of 2018 was $301 million. This is a drop from the company’s net income of $578 million reported in the same period of the year prior.

The Restaurant Brands International earnings report for the fourth quarter of the year also includes operating income of $516 million. The fast food company’s operating income from the fourth quarter of 2017 was $505 million.

Restaurant Brands International earnings release for the fourth quarter of 2018 also has revenue coming in at $1.39 billion. This is better than the company’s revenue of $1.23 billion from the fourth quarter of the previous year. It also matches analysts’ revenue estimate for the period.

The most recent earnings report from Restaurant Brands International also has it announcing a dividend of 50 cents for the first quarter of 2019. The company also says that it is targeting $2.00 in dividends for 2019.

QSR stock was up slightly as of noon Monday.

As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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A Dire Warning For Buy-And-Hold Investors…

We're barely a month into 2019, but the 2020 election season is already in full swing. 

Personally, I don't have any opinion on the candidates who have thrown their hat into the ring (other than that I'm not sure we need politicians running for president almost two years before the election, but that seems to be the current system). 

Over the next two years, many political commentaries will focus on whether we can afford the programs candidates propose. Some will argue that deficits are already too high and adding trillions in spending will push them even higher. 

Once upon a time, governments were expected to balance their budgets, but then economist John Maynard Keynes realized that governments could stimulate growth by running deficits when the economy contracted. Keynes also suggested running a surplus to offset the deficits when the economy was expanding, but politicians seem to have forgotten about that part of his work. If they followed that advice, deficits would rise and fall, and, in the long run, the government's budget would be balanced (in theory). 

That theory illustrates the concept of mean reversion, where a value fluctuates above and below its average. Mean reversion has also been applied to the stock market, and practitioners of this idea are warning that investors face problems in the long run.  

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Low Returns Going Forward?
One example is the work of Research Affiliates, a research-driven asset management firm that reportedly has $170 billion in assets under management. 

Research Affiliates publishes a great deal of its research, including a model based on mean reversion that shows the expected long-term returns of asset classes. In the long run, the stock market is expected to deliver average returns. There will be periods when returns are above average, and those periods will be followed by times when the market delivers below-average performance. 

Right now, mean reversion models are pointing to low returns for stocks in the next few years. I've reprinted the results from Research Affiliates' mean reversion model below, which illustrates the expected returns for various asset classes. As you can see, the asset manager expects U.S. stocks to deliver average returns of less than 4% a year over the next 10 years. 

Source: Research Affiliates 

And Research Affiliates isn't alone in its underwhelming estimates. A number of other firms produce similar asset class forecasts, and many have suggested that investors will face lower than average returns. GMO, another large asset manager, expects an average annual loss of about 2.5% over the next seven years for large-cap stocks. The firm expects small caps should do better, with an average annualized gain of about 1.3%. 

GMO expects value stocks in emerging markets to be the best-performing asset class, potentially delivering an average annual return of about 8.2%. Research Affiliates sees potential returns of about 10% a year in emerging markets. 

This all indicates that investors should not expect a buy-and-hold strategy to deliver acceptable returns in the long run. 

This should be pretty concerning for the average investor. After all, if you were counting on returns of 7% per year (or more), then what are you going to do to make up the difference?

Allow me to make a suggestion...

It's Time To Try Something Different
I think it's time for a lot of investors to start considering strategies that might be a little bit out of their comfort zone. What does that mean? Well, broadly speaking, I'm referring to more active strategies -- like the options selling strategy we use over at my premium newsletter, Income Trader.

If the idea of selling put options is new to you, that's OK. A good investor should always be open to expanding their skill set.

I wasn't always an options trader... I didn't go to a fancy Ivy League school or work on Wall Street before starting Income Trader. Instead, I learned about this stuff while I was in the military serving in Iraq. And now, I make more income from using my proprietary indicator to make safe, conservative options trades than I ever did in the Army.

If you think it's too complicated, then I'm here to tell you it's not. In fact, in just a few minutes, you can be up and running, earning more income than you ever thought possible.  I've prepared a full briefing that will tell you everything you need to know.