NFLX - Netflix, Inc.
| Previous close | 305.16 |
| Open | 306.00 |
| Bid | 310.30 x 1200 |
| Ask | 310.25 x 1000 |
| Day's range | 304.26 - 311.70 |
| 52-week range | 231.23 - 385.99 |
| Volume | 4,689,999 |
| Avg. volume | 8,126,643 |
| Market cap | 136.406B |
| Beta (3Y monthly) | 1.26 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 99.73 |
| EPS (TTM) | 3.12 |
| Earnings date | 15 Jan 2020 - 20 Jan 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | N/A |
| 1y target est | 361.63 |
- Yahoo Finance
Stock Market Live Updates: Stocks drift lower; Senate pushes back gov't shutdown
Headlines moving the stock market in real time.
- Bloomberg
13F Takeaways: Hedge Funds Favor Netflix, Facebook
Nov.15 -- U.S. hedge funds took advantage of declines for Netflix Inc. and Facebook Inc. to load up on shares during the third quarter, according to the latest glimpse into money managers’ holdings. Bloomberg’s Sonali Basak reports on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas."
- Bloomberg
Sony in Talks to Buy Stake in Ambani’s TV Network
(Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp. is in talks to acquire a stake in the Indian television network controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, as the Japanese giant seeks to tap booming demand for content in the South Asian nation, according to people familiar with the matter.The Tokyo-based company is currently conducting due diligence on Ambani’s Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. before any possible offer, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Sony is considering several potential deal structures, including a bid for the company or a merger of its own Indian business with Network18’s entertainment channels, one of the people said.Talks are at a preliminary stage and may not result in a transaction, the people said. Shares of Network18 surged as much as 19% in Mumbai on Thursday, while unit TV18 Broadcast Ltd. jumped 9.7%.While a successful deal may help Sony bolster its local offerings and take on upstart rivals such as Netflix Inc., it will give Ambani access to international content. The Indian tycoon’s wireless carrier, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., has spent almost $50 billion in the past few years on its network to disrupt India’s telecommunications industry and has been luring users by offering local and overseas programming.“Our company evaluates various opportunities on an ongoing basis,” a spokesman for Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., said in an email, declining to comment further. Representatives for Sony in India and Japan didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments.The talks come at a time when competition is heating up for paying viewers in a potentially lucrative market with more than half a billion smartphone users. Streaming companies such as Netflix to Amazon.com Inc. Prime are increasingly offering programs created locally to lure subscribers. Ambani’s Jio, while having the technology platform, is limited by the paucity of content it can stream, making such a deal with Sony crucial.“India is a massive OTT market, and any international OTT play will need to bolster its local strategy,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director at Bexley Advisors, a boutique firm in Mumbai, referring to over-the-top or streaming media services. “More partnerships or strategic alliances like this are likely in the next year or so.”Inside the Most Watched YouTube Channel in the WorldReliance Industries, the oil-to-petrochemicals conglomerate, unveiled plans last month to set up a digital-services holding company to fulfill the mogul’s ambitions for an e-commerce platform aimed at taking on the likes of Amazon.com and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart Online Services Pvt.Sony operates in the South Asian country through Sony Pictures Networks India, which has a bouquet of channels including Sony Entertainment Television, reaching over 700 million viewers in India.TV18 Broadcast owns and operates 56 channels in India spanning news and entertainment. It also caters to the global Indian diaspora through 16 international channels.(Updates with analyst’s comment in seventh paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Baiju Kalesh in Mumbai at bkalesh@bloomberg.net;Anto Antony in Mumbai at aantony1@bloomberg.net;P R Sanjai in Mumbai at psanjai@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Fion Li at fli59@bloomberg.net, ;Sam Nagarajan at samnagarajan@bloomberg.net, Arijit GhoshFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
GTN or NFLX: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?
GTN vs. NFLX: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?
- Zacks
Apple (AAPL) Unveils Latest Apple TV+ Thriller Series Servant
Apple's (AAPL) original content portfolio is further strengthened with the addition of the latest Apple TV+ thriller series Servant.
- Bloomberg
A Tech Company Now, Disney Has to Tackle Password Thieves
(Bloomberg) -- Some customers who signed up for Walt Disney Co.’s new Disney+ streaming service have seen their usernames and passwords sold online to third parties and have been locked out of their newly opened accounts.Disney said its system hasn’t been hacked and that it’s working to quickly address the issue. It’s possible that hackers obtained the names and passwords from data breaches at other companies.“Disney takes the privacy and security of our users’ data very seriously, and there is no indication of a security breach on Disney+,” the company said in a statement.Disney+ is the company’s effort to build a direct connection to consumers, as many people shift to watching movies and shows on demand rather than on cable and satellite TV. The $7-a-month service launched a week ago and quickly signed up more than 10 million customers, a number far exceeding predictions.Still, the debut was marred by many complaints from customers who couldn’t log on or had trouble watching programs. But the number of gripes collected by the website Downdetector has dropped sharply over the past week and now amounts to just a few dozen.Growing ExposureSpeaking at the Code Media conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Disney’s direct-to-consumer chief blamed the initial troubles on faulty coding in the app that the company is working to fix. Kevin Mayer said Disney executives were “very surprised” by the number of people who subscribed.The sign-up process was complicated, he said, because some customers already had subscriptions to Disney services such as Hulu and wanted to add the new one. Many customers also forgot they already has Disney accounts.“Not only was it huge demand, but the complexity,” Mayer said. “If you were a current subscriber, how does it work? Those were legitimate questions.”While Disney has long collected customers’ names and passwords for its theme parks and online games, the expansion into online video on a global basis brings the potential for more technology snafus.ZDNet reported over the weekend that Disney+ users’ accounts were being put up for sale on hacking forums within hours of the service’s launch at prices of $3 to $11 each. Some customers reported they had used old passwords, but others said they hadn’t, according to the website.While there may be few thousand compromised Disney accounts, that’s small compared with the hundreds of thousands of usernames and passwords on the black market hijacked from platforms like Hulu, Netflix and HBO, said Andrei Barysevich, chief executive officer and co-founder of the security firm Gemini Advisory.‘Very Effective’Reusing names and password combinations from previous attacks at other sites can be a “very effective method” for hackers, he said.“This is one of the biggest problems, not just streaming services, but pretty much every e-commerce business has been battling for the last couple of years, because there’s an abundance of compromised emails and passwords on the dark web,” Barysevich said.At Code Media, a conference for media executives, operators of rival services praised the Disney+ launch. David Nevins, chief creative officer at CBS Corp., called the sign-ups “impressive,” while AT&T Inc. President John Stankey said that while Disney+ “was off to a good start,” keeping customers happy and subscribed will be an ongoing issue.“How many of the 10 million customers are there six months from now?” Stankey asked. “It’s managing churn.”(Updates with executive comments starting in sixth paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net;Kiley Roache in New York at kroache@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Rob GolumFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Sanders Takes Aim at Netflix Over Taxes: Campaign Update
(Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders took at shot of Netflix Inc., saying the streaming service paid no federal income taxes in 2018.“Your $8.99 Netflix subscription is more than the company paid in federal income taxes last year (nothing),” the Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont senator tweeted. He added that he would “make massive corporations finally pay their fair share.”Netflix disputed his claim. The company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that it paid an effective tax rate of 1% in 2018. That was well below the federal corporate tax rate of 21%.The company reduced its tax burden by claiming credits for research expenses and deductions for paying employees in stock. In a statement, Netflix said it “did pay US Federal taxes in 2018” but didn’t disclose the amount.Republicans Raise $25.3 Million in October (4:14 p.m.)The Republican National Committee raised $25.3 million in October, its biggest haul for the month in a nonelection year, it announced Tuesday.Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s chairwoman, tied the big numbers to the public’s distaste for the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump, which began in October and was formalized with a House vote at the end of the month. “It’s clear that the American people are sick and tired of the Democrats’ baseless investigations,” she said in a statement.The party ended October with $61.4 million cash on hand. It’s raised $194 million so far to support Trump’s re-election and Republican candidates up and down the ballot. The RNC is targeting vulnerable House Democrats in their districts with newspaper ad buys coinciding with the first day of impeachment hearings.The RNC has raised far more than the Democratic National Committee, which had taken in $67 million through September and ended the month with $8.6 million in the bank. Parties with an incumbent president usually have a fundraising advantage over the party out of power.Both the RNC and DNC are due to file detailed reports on last month’s financial activity to the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday. -- Bill AllisonWarren Plan Targets White Nationalist Violence (9:00 a.m.)Elizabeth Warren pledged to prioritize fighting white nationalism, unveiling a proposal that would restrict gun access for people with expressed violent intent or hate-crime convictions.“Domestic right-wing terrorism is completely incompatible with American values,” Warren wrote in a Medium post Tuesday, pledging that, as president, she’d “use every tool we have to defeat it.”Warren said she would treat hate crimes as domestic terrorism by increasing federal oversight, including requiring state and local governments to provide additional data and having the FBI conduct more investigations.She’d direct the Pentagon to expand gun background checks and to better track bias crimes in the military. She’d establish a commission to identify and address violent extremist content on the Internet.President Donald Trump “wants Americans to blame their troubles on those who are new to our country, or who don’t look the same or pray the same or love the same,” Warren said, adding, “But America can be better than that.” -- Misyrlena EgkolfopoulouSanders Tops 4 Million Individual Donations (7:13 a.m.)Bernie Sanders’ campaign said he received more than 4 million individual donations, making him the fastest presidential candidate in history to reach the milestone.The Vermont senator is seeking to end all corporate giving in federal elections, and his $25.3 million third-quarter haul, the highest among Democratic contenders, came exclusively from individual donations.Senator Elizabeth Warren also eschews corporate money, but other contenders, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, have relied in part on donations from corporate political action committees.Sanders, who suffered a heart attack earlier this year, got a boost from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has campaigned with him in New York and Iowa. -- Kasia KlimasinskaCOMING UPTen candidates have qualified for the fifth Democratic debate on Wednesday in Atlanta: Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Cory Booker and Tom Steyer.\--With assistance from Kasia Klimasinska and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou.To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Kathleen HunterFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- IPO-Edge.com
INTERVIEW: TCV Partner Woody Marshall Explains the Key to a Winning Technology Growth Story
Woody Marshall, General Partner at TCV By John Jannarone Investing in a growth company requires a view that a business can be fundamentally profitable over an extended time horizon. But in some cases, public-market investors simply don’t have the patience to see a business blossom. That’s according to Woody Marshall, General Partner at Menlo Park-Based […]
- Yahoo Finance
What the Disney+ ‘hack’ should teach you about your own security
Disney+ was launched on Nov. 12, and just a week later, security concerns emerged regarding users' accounts. One theory as to why this all happened? Users reused their usernames and passwords from other sites for Disney+.
- Financial Times
Frozen 2 is a fantasia of Disney princesses, galloping water horses and new earworms
As such, it feels premature even to offer an opinion on the further adventures of princesses Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) after a single viewing. Squint and you may just make out the filmmakers, closing the final bedroom door and tiptoeing downstairs with their fingers crossed.
- Yahoo Finance
Why Disney+ is the only service that can rival Netflix
The streaming wars are going to end in a two-horse race between Netflix and Disney+.
- Yahoo Finance AU
Days left until Netflix disconnected for thousands of Aussies
Netflix will stop working on older television models from December 1 this year.
- Yahoo Finance
Disney+ is so hot right now that it's helping this toymaker's sales pop
Yahoo Finance speaks with Funko CEO Brian Mariotti inside its new 400,000-square-foot Hollywood mega store.
- Bloomberg
Disney+ Could Bring Streaming Peace to the Wild West
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For much of the past decade, the digital media landscape has largely been defined by disruptive companies such as Facebook, YouTube and Netflix. In the case of Facebook and YouTube, those disruptors are now seen as problematic; both face accusations that their platforms have become venues for privacy invasion, misinformation, malicious foreign actors and domestic political extremism. As the federal government weighs regulating these companies this creates an opening for platforms that are well-policed with the potential to take market share from the incumbent bad actors. That suggests the introduction of Walt Disney Co.'s new Disney+ video-streaming service couldn’t have been better timed.Disruptive platforms grew to enormous size by doing pretty much whatever they could to attract both producers and consumers of content. Restrictions on what kinds of content could be published were barriers to growth while also raising thorny ethical questions about how platforms that claimed to be neutral could moderate content on their networks. Content moderation has a big drawback: It's expensive, whether that means building technology to monitor abuse or hiring humans to do the job. It's not too surprising that companies interested in holding down costs and maximizing profits might try to avoid those costs.And it's hard to untangle and design remedies for these problems because the platforms have gone global, with hundreds of millions if not billions of users. With competing and divergent interests among consumers, content producers, advertisers, politicians and shareholders, any change from the status quo is bound to run into opposition. The result is that change ends up being much slower than many might hope.That's where Disney+ comes in. Disney’s announcement on launch day that it had signed up 10 million subscribers indicates potential demand; it's possible that the platform could gain significant market share in the streaming wars much sooner than many anticipate. It gives young parents -- or anyone else not interested in the fire hose of trash on offer elsewhere -- a trusted platform to install on their kids' or their own smartphones and tablets. Every minute spent on Disney+ is a minute not spent on other digital media platforms, lessening the influence of the latter. As the clout of Disney+ grows at the expense of the competition, it could put pressure on the latter to clean up their collective acts and put in place more safeguards.The parallel to consider here is the evolution of the music industry. Until the launch of peer-to-peer music-file-sharing company Napster in 1999, the vast majority of consumers got their music through traditional channels -- mainly radio and CDs. Then Napster and other illicit services built off the BitTorrent platform made it easier for consumers to download MP3 files at a time when major corporations were reluctant to embrace the new technologies. But downloading MP3s often exposed consumers to other types of illegally-distributed content like video games and software. That made MP3s a sort of gateway drug to other dubious online activity and content.That era didn't last long. First, Apple introduced the iTunes store in 2003, which surged in popularity with the growth of first the iPod and later the iPhone. Then, music streaming services like Spotify followed, attracting tens of millions of users. Napster has since shut down, and though black market file-sharing services still exist, most consumers would find them too much of a nuisance to deal with when it's cheap and easy to buy or stream music legitimately.If we're lucky, Disney+ could mark the point when major tech corporations decide to take control of the media ecospheres they've created. There are now a plethora of streaming services with billions of dollars invested in them, giving consumers, particularly parents, choices without some of the downsides of the large, disruptive platforms. Content creators, major corporate partners and advertisers can focus their resources on platforms that have better reputations and aren't constantly in the news for moderation and data-privacy issues. Thriving in the future may require these disruptors to abandon the Wild West ways that powered their initial rise. And who would be bothered by that?To contact the author of this story: Conor Sen at csen9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a portfolio manager for New River Investments in Atlanta and has been a contributor to the Atlantic and Business Insider.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Investing.com
Netflix Rises 3%
Investing.com - Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) rose by 3.01% to trade at $303.89 by 12:10 (17:10 GMT) on Monday on the NASDAQ exchange.
- Bloomberg
For Apple and Disney+, Getting People to Sign Up Isn’t the Hard Part
(Bloomberg) -- At long last, Walt Disney Co. launched its video-streaming platform, Disney+, last Tuesday. Ten million people signed up in the first 24 hours, a stunning feat considering the deluge of rivals flooding the market. By comparison, it took HBO Now about four years to reach that milestone.The rapid adoption is a testament not just to the power of Disney’s brand but also to a business strategy that stands in stark contrast to this month’s other big streaming debut, Apple Inc.’s TV+. Disney sold a $7-a-month service using a colossal back catalog of content and a single episode of a new buzzy series based on a well-known franchise, Star Wars. Apple was forced to bet big on a slate of expensive—and so far, not widely acclaimed—original movies and TV shows.Disney+ got off to a rocky start with streaming glitches, but the outages ultimately stemmed from a good problem: overwhelming demand. More people streamed Disney+ from a phone or tablet on launch day than watched Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video, which had a 13-year head start.The popularity of Disney+ is driven in large part by an explosion of nostalgic offerings. Titles like Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty were often expensive and hard to find unless you hung onto a VCR. Disney has invested in originals, too, but I found myself glued to the library of classics. I haven’t even gotten around to watching the new Star Wars offshoot, the Mandalorian.Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger has been touting this “rich in brands” approach. “There are 30 seasons of The Simpsons there,” he told Bloomberg Businessweek in a recent interview. The big test will be whether the service can grow its catalog of originals fast enough to keep customers interested after the nostalgic novelty wears off.Apple TV+, on the other hand, feels empty after just a couple weeks. There’s not much opportunity to binge-watch because, well, there’s simply not enough content to binge. The Morning Show, its flagship series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, seems to be improving as the first season progresses, but with only one new episode per week, some critics are already questioning whether the $5-a-month price tag is worth it. Every company has faced this question, Amazon and Netflix Inc. included, but they all had plenty of licensed content from other studios to lean on.Apple appears to grasp the need to find ways to keep subscribers paying: Bloomberg reported last week that the company is exploring a mega subscription bundle of music, news and TV for as soon as next year. Such a bundle may make subscribers less likely to cancel when there’s a drought of new shows as long as they can fill the time with their favorite albums and magazines.But for now, my seven-day trial to Apple TV+ is already up. I received my first email receipt, incidentally, while watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Disney+. As the streaming wars play out, the metric that may be most indicative of success won’t be how many people sign up but rather how many cancel.This article also ran in Bloomberg Technology’s Fully Charged newsletter. Sign up here.And here’s what you need to know in global technology newsSpeaking of Star Wars, Elon Musk criticized Boeing for charging NASA $90 million per seat to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a cost Musk’s SpaceX can purportedly do for 39% less. Here on Earth, a Musk lieutenant was in Las Vegas for development of an underground transportation system.HP rejected Xerox’s offer for a takeover. The board voted unanimously against the proposal, saying the price was too low but that the company is open to exploring a deal.After high-profile investments in WeWork and Uber whiffed, SoftBank raised roughly $2 billion for its next startup mega-fund, a fraction of its $108 billion target. Meanwhile, WeWork faces an SEC inquiry.Google is heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a multibillion-dollar copyright clash with Oracle over code used in Android. Hopefully the justices have brushed up on their programming knowledge.To contact the author of this story: Austin Carr in New York at acarr54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMeyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Prince Andrew Bombs in BBC Interview, Creating PR Disaster
(Bloomberg) -- Prince Andrew’s attempt to explain away his friendship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein in a high-profile TV interview degenerated into a farce that threatens to be the British royal family’s biggest public relations disaster since its handling of the death of Princess Diana in 1997.PrinceAndrew trended high on Twitter as Saturday’s hour-long interview with the BBC began airing on prime-time British TV. Interviewed by Newsnight host Emily Maitlis in a carpeted room, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son gave a wooden display in which he denied sleeping with Virginia Roberts, one of Epstein’s alleged teenaged sex slaves.By Sunday morning, there was no doubt where the public’s sympathies lay.He knew the liaison didn’t happen, he said, because Roberts has referred to him being “sweaty” -- and he once had a medical condition at the time that meant he couldn’t sweat. Also, he remembered that was the same day he took his daughter Princess Beatrice to a Pizza Express restaurant in suburban Surrey.When pressed why he recalled this date so clearly, he replied, “because going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do, a very unusual thing for me to do.”The prince’s answers -- particularly on why he decided to stay in Epstein’s New York mansion for four days in 2010 because it was “convenient” -- will probably place him in the public domain for weeks or longer. That visit came months after Epstein was released from custody following his conviction as a sex offender.It’s another unwelcome distraction for the House of Windsor. Some older negative storylines are set to be aired in the third series of Netflix’s “The Crown,” and it’s had to deal recently with the PR fallout from a damaging interview that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave to broadcaster ITV.While there’s always been a hardcore of royalists supporting the monarchy, its popularity in Britain took a major hit following the Queen’s initially rigid and protocol-driven response to the Princess of Wales’s death in a car crash at age 36. Buckingham Palace’s initial refusal to fly the Royal Standard at half-staff came in for particular criticism.Instant ReactionReaction to Andrew’s interview came thick and fast. Little of it was in favor of the prince, or of the team who thought it was a good idea for him to go in front of the camera. The Sun, Britain’s top-selling newspaper, rated his attempt with the headline, “Wince Andrew.”On Twitter, quiz show host Richard Osman mused that “he’s just too thick to even lie properly,” while Craig Oliver, the former communications chief for ex-prime minister David Cameron said, “it will go down as one of the worst PR decisions ever -- proof you really can make things a lot worse when you try to explain yourself.”Andrew appears to have agreed to the interview against the advice of the public relations consultant hired to try to revive his image in the wake of the Epstein revelations. Jason Stein tried to convince him not to do the interview and quit his post two weeks ago after Andrew insisted on going ahead, the Sunday Times reported.Before the broadcast, the Twitter account of Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts, retweeted the opinion of British journalist Peter Barron in which he said the interview would only make the scandal worse.(Updates with resignation of adviser in ninth paragraph)\--With assistance from Hailey Waller and Andrew Davis.To contact the reporter on this story: James Ludden in New York at jludden@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, James LuddenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
'Friends' reboot? Why streaming giants are cashing in on revivals
“Friends” might be getting a reboot on HBO Max while Netflix secures a one-time licensing deal with Paramount for the fourth installment of “Beverly Hills Cop." Why reboots are all the rage as platforms look to beat out streaming competitors.
- Bloomberg
Roku Says It Won’t Be Long Before Streaming Revenue Eclipses TV
(Bloomberg) -- Streaming video has been one of the biggest growth stories of the past several years, but even with all the attention that has been paid to the space, the industry is nowhere near full maturity, according to an executive at streaming-platform Roku Inc.“In the long run, the total addressable market for streaming video is all TV money, period,” said Scott Rosenberg, a senior vice president and general manager of Roku’s platform business. Over-the-top (OTT) streaming “lets advertisers do things that they’ve gotten used to in digital but which hasn’t been possible on TV,” such as individually targeting consumers based on user-specific data.Rosenberg compared the industry, specifically streaming-related advertising, to the early days of smartphones, when usage far outpaced how much advertisers focused on them. He cited a study from Magna that suggested 29% of TV viewing was happening outside the traditional model, although only 3% of TV ad budgets were being allocated to streaming services.That imbalance will correct “in a pretty accelerated fashion over the next two or three years,” he said in a phone interview. “Marketers are starting to move their money, and once it begins to happen apace, I think we’ll see a significant outflow.”It will likely take a few years for streaming ad revenue to surpass linear TV, he said, though the trend is accelerating. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, OTT ad revenue is expected to grow to $9 billion by 2023, compared with $4 billion in 2019. The TV advertising market is estimated at around $70 billion.While much of the focus on the sector has been on the fight for audiences between content providers -- both Apple and Walt Disney have recently launched new services, with others on the way, including HBO Max next spring -- Roku has benefited by being a portal to these services, rather than a competitor. Last month, Apple announced that its TV+ app would be available on Roku’s platform, news that was notable as the iPhone maker offers its own streaming hardware.The agreement “validates [Roku’s] dominant role as an aggregator,” and “the content-agnostic nature of its platform will allow more deals with streaming services,” Bloomberg Intelligence wrote.Investors have rewarded Roku’s position within the ecosystem. Shares are up more than 400% thus far this year, making it the biggest gainer in the Russell 1000 index by far. Netflix Inc. is up about 10% thus far in 2019, while Disney has risen 32%.Earlier this month, RBC Capital Markets wrote that Roku was “one of the best plays on ad-supported OTT, with the company being one of the best positioned to take share of the very large, underpenetrated” $70 billion TV advertising spending opportunityRoku posted its sixth straight advance on Friday and has risen more than 30% over that stretch. The gains have coincided with the launch of Disney+, as well as bullish commentary from Bank of America, which on Friday raised its price target and wrote that Roku’s Black Friday discounts are setting it up for “outsized” account growth in the fourth quarter.While the stock struggled in September because of concerns about competition for streaming hardware, Roku’s platform business accounts for a growing percentage of its overall revenue. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the division comprised nearly 70% of the company’s third-quarter revenue, while the rest came from its players business. Over all of 2018, platforms accounted for just 56.1% of revenue.Roku’s Rosenberg told Bloomberg that the company continued to view linear TV as its biggest competition for near-term growth. “We’re trying to take OTT advertising from a $5 billion market to a market that’s $20, $30, or even $50 billion. However, cord-cutters are leaving paid-TV in droves, and user engagement is on our side. When I started here, there were no networks doing streaming, but now Disney is all-in on a major service. There’s been a series of tipping points for the industry.”He added that he was planning to spend the weekend watching “The Mandalorian,” a new series set in the “Star Wars” universe, now streaming on Disney+.To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Tatiana DarieFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Hedge Funds Bought Netflix, Facebook in Rough Third Quarter
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. hedge funds bought shares of Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc. despite steep declines in the technology darlings during a volatile third quarter.Chase Coleman and David Tepper were among the money managers who increased their Facebook holdings during the three-month stretch that saw the social-media giant fall nearly 8%. Netflix was favored by firms including Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital Ltd. and Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners despite a 27% drop in the three months ending Sept. 30.Hedge fund managers, who have long adored FAANG stocks, had to navigate a tumultuous period. While Amazon.com Inc. also fell, down 8%, Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. both rose more than 13%. At the same time, the S&P 500 index gained 1.2% amid an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war and dovish moves by central bankers.Here are some other notable moves:Harvard University’s endowment added 2 million Facebook shares, bringing the value of its position to roughly $400 million on Sept. 30, and making the company its biggest single U.S. equity holding.Stan Druckenmiller offloaded almost his entire stake in Uber Technologies Inc., selling 2.5 million shares. His Duquesne Family Office took a stake in Shopify Inc.Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. announced new common-equity stakes in Occidental Petroleum Corp., which is on top of a preferred stake that was previously disclosed. It also purchased shares of home furnishings company RH, which sent the stock surging the day after the filing. RH rose as much as 8.7%. the most since June, in early trading on Friday. Berkshire trimmed some of its largest stock bets, including Apple, Wells Fargo & Co. and Phillips 66.Viking Global Investors ditched its $1.2 billion stake in UnitedHealth Group Inc. as health-care stocks were hit by politics both in Washington and on the campaign trial.Maverick sold 690,000 shares of managed-care company Humana Inc., which had been the fund’s top U.S. equity position in the second quarter. (It now sits at No. 9).Microsoft Corp. was one of the less popular stocks for the second quarter in a row. Tiger cubs Viking, Coatue Management and Maverick all decreased their holdings in the tech giant as did Duquesne. But the software giant was up more than 3% during that period and has been a top performer this year -- shares have gained almost 46%.(Adds gain in RH shares in Buffett section.)\--With assistance from Katherine Chiglinsky, Emma Vickers, Vincent Bielski, Scott Deveau and Michael McDonald.To contact the reporters on this story: Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net;Hema Parmar in New York at hparmar6@bloomberg.net;Melissa Karsh in New York at mkarsh@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net, Alan MirabellaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Disney, Netflix, Apple, Roku and Amazon
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Disney, Netflix, Apple, Roku and Amazon
- Zacks
Why Is Netflix (NFLX) Down 1.3% Since Last Earnings Report?
Netflix (NFLX) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.
- Investing.com
Netflix Rises; Nothing Changes With Disney+ Launch, Says Content Chief
Investing.com - Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) isn’t deterred by the rise of other streaming services, like Disney+. In fact, the company is surprised it didn’t happen sooner, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said at an event in New York Thursday evening.
