Stocks and Sectors

Gabriel Kaplan submits:

Summary of Investment Thesis

Netflix (NFLX) has a strong business operation that is highly successful and has driven strong revenue, EPS, and cash flow growth over the past several years. We expect this to continue as Netflix expands its share of the home rental market. We also believe that the company’s expanding offerings of streaming content will enhance profitability by potentially lowering churn (currently around 4.2%), subscriber acquisition cost, as well as fulfillment expenses. While we are positive on the outlook for the company we believe that near-term growth potential, we do think this company is overvalued.

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King of All Trades submits:

By Relmor Demitrius

There are many ways to identify and define success. The same can be said about worth and value. It is especially true when trying to apply these concepts to something intangible, as an artist or performer. Take a talent like Howard Stern. He’s not a hard asset that you can simply attach a known value to, or state exactly what he would mean to your company. What is his actual value to Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI)? When Greg Maffei (CEO of Liberty Media and Liberty Capital (NASDAQ:LCAPA) and 40% owners of Sirius XM), asks Mel Karmazin (CEO of Sirius XM) how much is Howard Stern worth to the company, what does he tell him? This is the debate among bloggers to professional financial analysis that has been going on for years. How do you evaluate Howard Stern’s actual value to the company? He makes 100 million dollars a year, minus the cost to run his show. Is he worth it? Is he overpaid? Is he underpaid? Is he fairly paid? How much of Sirius XM’s revenue can be attributed to him. In this article I will go over the effect of signing Howard Stern to Sirius Satellite Radio and any effect overall he had on the satellite radio industry altogether. First, let’s get some opinions out of the way.

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Satellite Radio Playground submits:

By Brian “Newman” Rayl

September 1st, the auto industry released sales numbers for the month of August. According to Edmunds Auto Observer, the seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) came in at 11.5 million with 997,001 new vehicles sold for the month nationwide, down a staggering 21% year-over-year from August 2009. For Satellite Radio provider Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI), anything above 900,000 vehicles sold on a monthly basis will allow them to add subscribers or, at a minimum, break even.

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Joel West submits:

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Brandon Matthews submits:

How can you tell if a company is growing? CNBC recently began asking its guests whether or not they were hiring at the present time. There may be turmoil in the markets and the economic outlook may remain uncertain, but at Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) growth seems to be accelerating.

A look at the job listings tells the tale. There are 111 positions posted at Sirius XM Radio that go back as far as 2009. 70 of these positions have been added since June of this year, with 28 new job postings being added in August 2010 alone. I discovered this after being forwarded a link to a specific job listing with Sirius XM that offered a potential glimpse into SatRad 2.0.

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StreetAuthority submits:

By David Sterman

It’s important to maintain a watch list of stock ideas. Many of your investment ideas can be intriguing, but not quite tempting enough to merit your hard-earned dollars just yet. I like to check in on all of these investment ideas almost daily, waiting to see if the stock falls down to a level that I can’t resist, or if the company has announced new initiatives or quarterly results that make the stock a true bargain.

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King of All Trades submits:

In the weeks since the final bankruptcy sale and approval of Worldspace WRSP.PK assets to Noah Samara; this time through Yazmi LLC, one thing is abundantly clear. The plight of all the assets of Worldspace and SATCO is as yet unknown and still awaiting a final outcome.

Court documents prior to the final sale stated that the consideration to be received from Yazmi in the sale purchase agreement would not be sufficient to pay Liberty (NSDQ: LCAPA), Satellite Radio, and Liberty Satellite Radio Holdings in full. The Debtors estimated that Liberty’s aggregate secured claims were in excess of $116 million dollars.

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Diane Mermigas submits:

The big question for anyone in television is how to get in front of – rather than be trampled by – the onslaught of seminal change coming from a multitude of places.

This year’s fall television season unfolds against an increasingly connected world and consumer indifference to how and where they access network fare. Many will access the programs they want to see streaming online from network Web sites and third parties, such as Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes. It appears Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who also is Walt Disney’s (DIS) largest shareholder and board member, will have ABC’s backing to provide 99-cent iTunes windowed viewing of its new season shows, which is half the present price to buy and download individual episodes.

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Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits:

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Erick Schonfeld submits:

Between online video, DVRs, and on-demand cable the amount of time people spend watching live TV (you know, with all of those commercials that advertisers spend $70 billion a year on) is shrinking fast. Only 52 percent of American’s viewing time is spent on live TV compared to online and time-shifting alternatives, according to a new survey of 1,000 American consumers by market research firm Morpace. And that percentage decreases the younger the audience, with the key 18-to-34-year-old demographic watching live TV only 41 percent of the time, versus 64 percent of the time for those 55 and older.

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