Author Archives: Scalper1

Comcast Q1 Earnings Beats, Adds Video Users Amid DreamWorks Talks

Comcast ( CMCSA ), reportedly in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation ( DWA ), early Wednesday posted Q1 earnings and revenue that topped views, as the cable TV firm added 53,000 video subscribers. Revenue at NBCUniversal’s film unit slipped from Q1 2015 due to a weaker slate of movies. Comcast is in talks to pay $3 billion , roughly $34 to $35 per share for DreamWorks, Bloomberg and others have reported . DreamWorks has been pursued in the past by Hasbro ( HAS ) and Japan’s SoftBank. DreamWorks owns AwesomenessTV, which provides content for young adults. Verizon Communications ( VZ ) in early April acquired a 24.5% stake in AwesomenessTV for $159 million. Both Comcast and Verizon have been pursuing original content for millennials, a demographic coveted by advertisers. Comcast said Q1 earnings, excluding items, rose 7% from the year-earlier quarter to 87 cents per share, while revenue increased 5.3% to $18.8 billion. Analyst had modeled EPS of 79 cents and revenue of 18.64 billion. Comcast’s video customer additions represent a swing from a loss of 8,000 in Q1 2015. It marked its most video subscriber additions in nine years. Comcast added 438,000 broadband subscribers, up from 407,000 in Q1 2015. Comcast said cable TV revenue climbed 6.7% to $12.2 billion, while NBCU revenue rose 3.9% to $6.86 billion. Filmed entertainment revenue fell 4.3% to $1.38 billion. In the year-earlier period, Universal Film released “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Comcast stock was up more than 1.5% in premarket trading Wednesday, following its earnings release.

Technology Investors Worth Following

Despite the Buffett ism that investing in technology is a fool’s errand, many people have consistently shown themselves able to navigate the sector comfortably and make a killing doing so. In

A Window Of Opportunity For Emerging Market Assets

This week’s chart shows why we are in a sweet spot for emerging market (EM) assets. Three key headwinds for EM assets have abated lately, with a weakening U.S. dollar, a rebound in commodity prices and a recovering Chinese economy. Click to enlarge The Federal Reserve (Fed) has signaled it is set to keep rates on hold for now . This has lowered the near-term risk of EM capital outflows, weakened the U.S. dollar and boosted oversold EM currencies. Also supporting EMs are firming oil prices, fading global recession fears and signs that China’s economy may enjoy a cyclical rebound . This “sweet” economic backdrop helps explain an EM rebound, evident in EM-related exchange traded products (ETPs) attracting nearly $16 billion this year, according to BlackRock research. EM ETPs have recouped 75 percent of 2015 outflows, the “short EM” trade is much less crowded than it was at the start of the year, and EM valuations are no longer unambiguously cheap, our research suggests. Can the sweet spot continue? Fed tightening, a Chinese yuan devaluation or economic slowdown, and a renewed slump in oil prices are all risks to the EM story. We see the Fed remaining dovish through mid-year. Yet, risks could return in the second half as U.S. rates increase and China’s credit-fueled growth improvement slows. Evidence of structural reforms addressing excess debt, industrial overcapacity and low corporate profitability is needed, particularly in China, to spark a sustainable EM bull market. Policies currently supporting Chinese growth are actually increasing structural imbalances. However, while we are in the sweet spot, we do see selected opportunities among EM assets that investors may want to consider, including in EM local currency debt and certain equity markets. Read my full weekly commentary for more details on these opportunities. This post originally appeared on the BlackRock Blog.