News Corp.
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Entertainment Isn't Cheap
By Tyler Wofford - April 6, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, TWX, DIS
Some claim to be "magical" and some claim to show "reality," but they are all in the entertainment business. Some own theme parks, and some own networks that host the Super Bowl, but are any of them cheap enough to buy? Here are a few entertainment companies and a look at how expensive (or cheap) they really are.
News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA), which is commonly referred to by the screen more »
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Entertainment Isn't Cheap
By Tyler Wofford - April 3, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, TWX, DIS
Some claim to be "magical" and some claim to show "reality", but they are all in the entertainment business. Some own theme parks, and some own networks that host the Super Bowl, but are any of them cheap to buy? Here are a few entertainment companies and a look at how expesive (or cheap) they really are.
News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA), who is commonly referred to by their screen name more »
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Broadcasting Company Looking Attractive After Refinancing
By Mike Thiessen - March 25, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, SALM, TWX
Camarillo, California-based radio broadcasting company Salem Communications (NASDAQ: SALM) recently made two distinct announcements that could dramatically alter investors' perceptions of the company. For starters, Salem indicated that it would increase its quarterly dividend payments by a whopping 43 percent and reward its shareholders with a full $.05 per quarter.
At the same time, the company has also made definitive plans to refinance more than $200 million in outstanding long-term more »
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Acquisition Candidates for Apple
By Ishfaque Faruk - March 25, 2013 | Tickers: AAPL, NFLX, NWSA
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) needs to find newer outlets for growth in addition to its existing ones. The company faces a material amount of product life-cycle risk stemming from the over-reliance on phone and tablet sales. The company quickly needs a few major product roll-outs and innovations to calm down the sentiment of bearish investors. However, $137 billion in the bank, it makes perfect sense for Apple to buy rapidly growing more »
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Value Investor Seth Klarman's New Moves
By Marshall Hargrave - March 22, 2013 | Tickers: AIG, HPQ, MSFT, NWSA, ORCL
Seth Klarman manages one of the largest hedge funds in the world, The Baupost Group, founded in 1983 and managing some $7 billion. Klarman and his hedge fund invest across a number of areas and investments, including value-oriented stocks and distressed debt. Of late, it appears that Klarman is overly bearish on the tech industry, while being bullish on a highly popular insurance stock.
Baupost Group took a new stake more »
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Donald Yacktman's Top Five Picks
By Marshall Hargrave - March 20, 2013 | Tickers: CSCO, NWSA, PEP, PG, SYY
Donald Yacktman founded Yacktman Asset Management in 1992 and was named the "Portfolio Manager of The Year" by Morningstar in 1991. Per his 2012 investor letter, Yacktman has some big bets placed on consumer staples, not to mention one of the media giants.
Per his funds' prospectus, Yacktman buys companies that have growth opportunities, but are trading at low prices, employing the best of both worlds with growth and value more » -
This Media Company Is Too Risky, Buy These Alternatives Instead
By Matthew Frankel - March 19, 2013 | Tickers: GCI, NWSA, NYT, WPO
The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) has done a great job in recent years of selling off its non-core assets in order to focus on maximizing the core New York Times brand all around the world. However, over the past month or so, shares of the company have begun to look a little too spiky, and I’m a bit concerned. Since early February, shares have popped 22% from the more »
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Spinning Off the Old and Keeping the New
By Mike Thiessen - March 18, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, NYT, TWX
Time Warner Company (NYSE: TWX) recently entered into talks with a major private equity firm to spin off the bulk of its Time print-media division and continue on as a leaner, smaller firm that focuses more narrowly on visual and digital media. Although the talks have been described as "preliminary," Time Warner has a clear impetus to shed this business. Even if the current talks amount to nothing, it seems more »
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Billionaire Steve Cohen Shakes Up His Top Five
By Marshall Hargrave - March 18, 2013 | Tickers: EBAY, FB, NWSA, SLB, SHW
Billionaire Steve Cohen and his SAC Capital hedge fund made some serious moves during the fourth quarter, rearranging their top five holdings completely, including making some big bets on stocks you might not have expected.Cohen was one of the top five hedge fund earners in 2012 (see all five here), pulling in a nice $1.3 billion during 2012. Cohen founded Connecticut-based hedge fund SAC Capital in 1992 and more » -
Billionaire Daniel Och's New Purchases
By Meena Krishnamsetty - March 15, 2013 | Tickers: CCE, ESRX, NWSA, RLGY, GRA
Daniel Och started Och-Ziff Capital Management almost twenty years ago, and it has become one of the largest institutional managers of alternative assets since then. A subsidiary of the firm is OZ Management, a fund that must comply with the SEC’s quarterly requirements of position disclosures. We take keen interest in these holdings, as we have found that the most popular small-cap stocks amongst hedge fund managers can handily more »
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Google Is the New 'Darling' of Hedge Funds
By Marivic Cabural - March 14, 2013 | Tickers: AIG, AAPL, GOOG, NWSA
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is the new darling of hedge funds. According to a report from Tobias Levkovich, analyst at Citigroup the search engine giant ranked number one in the list of stocks owned by the top 50 largest hedge funds and mutual funds during the fourth quarter of 2012. Google replaced Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) as the favorite stock holding of the biggest investors in terms of the size of assets more »
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As Newspapers Fall, Content Is King
By Timothy Green - March 9, 2013 | Tickers: GCI, NWSA, NYT
The internet has forever altered countless industries, none more so than the newspaper business. Traditionally relying on advertising for the bulk of revenue, declining circulations have caused many newspapers to fold and others to suffer financially. But what's dying is the medium on which the news is delivered, not the content itself, and the companies which can successfully monetize digital distribution of their content will be able to not more »
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News Corp Is Still a Buy at its 52-Week High
By Shas Dey - March 6, 2013 | Tickers: CMCSA, NWSA, TWX, DIS
Media company News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA) has been in the news all through February, and the trend seems to be continuing in March. The biggest news for the company, however, came in June 2012 when the company decided to unlock shareholder value and allow shareholders to benefit off its growing business. News Corp announced its intention to pursue the separation of its publishing and media and entertainment businesses into two more »
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Hulu’s Future Is up in the Air
By Chris Moore - March 6, 2013 | Tickers: AMZN, CMCSA, NFLX, NWSA, DIS
I often give Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) a hard time, pointing to its easy to mimic business model and rapidly growing list of competitors, but it seems one of its better known threats is at a crossroads. According to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, rival Hulu’s future is being discussed by two of its three owners. The online site is owned by News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA), Disney (NYSE: DISmore »)
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3 Top Picks from Elliott Management
By Laura Paur - February 27, 2013 | Tickers: BMC, IBM, NTAP, NWSA
In this article I analyze Elliott Management’s holdings. Elliott takes a value oriented, activist approach to investment, meaning that the fund will take on significant, but minority, stakes in companies that are in distress or have not performed as well as their peers, and attempt to affect change within the company's management to deliver the greater shareholder value possible. Over the past 35 years Elliott has produced an more »
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Reading the Newspapers and Media Stocks
By Nate Wooley - February 25, 2013 | Tickers: GCI, NWSA, MNI, NYT, WPO
It's interesting, to me at least, to watch the old grey lady, The New York Times, as it attempts to get out from under The Boston Globe. The initial thought, when the Times bought the Globe, was that a northeast powerhouse newspaper could really gain some synergies. Guess not, given that the price the Times is hoping to get for the Globe is much less than it paid.
Well more »
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All Time Highs for This Entertainment and Information Giant
By Ryan Guenette - February 22, 2013 | Tickers: CBS, CMCSA, NWSA, TWC, DIS
A SWOT analysis is a look at a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and is a tremendous way to gain a detailed and thorough perspective on a company and its future. As 2013 begins, I would like to pinpoint on a leading provider of entertainment, information, and communications products and services, Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA).
The Business:
Warren Buffett once said, “Never invest in a business you can more »
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Why Time Warner Should Think About Spin-Off As Well
By Ron Chatterjee - February 21, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, TWX
We should have understood that Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) CEO, was probably intent on selling the magazine business, when he said to CNBC some time ago, "There's tremendous resilience in the national magazine publishing business." In other words, he was hinting at the dwindling print publishing business, and that he might look for alternative options in the near future. The future is now the present, and Time more »
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Billionaire Michael Hintze’s Top Picks
By Meena Krishnamsetty - February 21, 2013 | Tickers: BHP, CCL, LBTYA, NWSA, RYAAY
Chinese-born Michael Hintze is an Australian/British businessman, famously perched on Forbes’s billionaire list as the 880th richest person in the world. He made his fortune primarily through his hedge fund company CQS; the directional fund’s tremendous gains in 2012 gave it the rank of the third top-performing large hedge fund in the world for the year. CQS released their 13F filing a few days ago, highlighting more »
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Billionaire David Einhorn's Investor Letter: Short Pitney Bowes
By Marshall Hargrave - February 20, 2013 | Tickers: NWSA, PBI, NYT, TWX
Why billionaire David Einhorn hates Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI)
It turns out that Einhorn's Greenlight Capital hedge fund underperformed in 2012, putting in a 7.9% return for full year 2012, compared to the S&P 500's 2012 return of over 13%.
However, since its inception in 1996, Greenlight has managed to return an annualized 19.4% net of fees (check out Greenlight's long portfolio,) so when more »