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Netflix Stock Downgraded As Risks And Spending Increase

Internet television service Netflix ( NFLX ) could be approaching saturation in the U.S. and might face execution issues in its global rollout, FBR analyst Barton Crockett said in a report Friday. Crockett downgraded Netflix stock to market perform from outperform and cut his price target to 100 from 125. At the same time, he upgraded streaming music service Pandora Media ( P ) to outperform from market perform with a price target of 16. Pandora was down 12% at 8 on the stock market today after posting disappointing Q4 results on Thursday. Netflix stock was up 1.2% to above 87 Friday. It hit an all-time high of 133.27 on Dec. 7. Crockett listed three main risks for Netflix: Slowing U.S. growth, international execution risks and cash burn. Netflix has missed its own goals for U.S. subscriber additions for the last two quarters. In the December quarter, it added 1.56 million U.S. streaming subscribers, bringing its domestic total to 44.74 million. At the start of the quarter, Netflix was aiming for 1.65 million new U.S. streaming subscribers. “Slowing subscriber growth is possible if the U.S. market nears saturation,” Crockett said. “Another risk is competition from other streaming (video-on-demand) providers, including Amazon ( AMZN ) Prime and Hulu, which also offer services with subscription-based models.” On the international front, Netflix is ramping its subscription offering into markets with more than 300 million broadband homes. “As this continues, execution risks include competition, content misfires and broadband service interruptions,” he said. Then, there’s the issue of cash burn. Netflix’s spending has accelerated as it has increased its production of original movies and TV shows. It’s expected to run a negative cash flow this year and next, he said. “Netflix could seek to raise more debt financing for this cash burn, stoking investor concerns about cash burn,” Crockett said. RELATED: Who’s Courting Pandora Media: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Spotify? Netflix Stock Value Too Compelling To Pass Up, Piper Jaffray Says .  

Luxoft Hurt By Deutsche Bank, FX; Stock Plunges But CEO Holds Firm

Already down 28% from Feb. 1 before the open Friday,  Luxoft Holding stock plunged as much as 16% in the stock market today before regaining some of its losses, with shares down 4.5%, near 53, in afternoon trading. Late Thursday, the company delivered Q3 earnings and gave full-year guidance below Wall Street estimates. A tech-outsourcing firm primarily targeting financial services IT and automotive tech markets, Switzerland-based Luxoft said EPS minus items  fell 11% year over year to 72 cents, on revenue that grew 18% to $172 million, for the quarter ended Dec. 31. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected 80 cents on $175 million. Luxoft stock is now 34% below its all-time high of 80.64 set just Dec. 8. Luxoft went public in June 2013 at 17. In the company’s earnings conference call early Friday, CEO Dmitry Loschin said Luxoft faced tough comps from a year earlier, “material” foreign-exchange headwinds, and offered “discounts to some of our key customers.” He said the discounts were enabled by “our strong performance during the first six months of the year” before uttering Deutsche Bank ( DB ), which he eventually explained. The bad news: Frankfurt-based Deutsche, Luxoft’s No. 1 client, was just coming off another big quarterly loss, prompting layoffs and a five-year restructuring program. The good news: Luxoft just signed a five-year master services agreement with Deutsche, expiring in December 2020, and made it to Deutsche’s shrinking preferred-vendor list. “With that, we believe Deutsche Bank . . . will provide a stable level of revenues for the next 12-14 months for Luxoft, but we are not forecasting significant growth,” Loschin told analysts. Asked by an JPMorgan analyst Alexey Gogolev if Deutsche would require further discounts, Loschin responded: “For sure we don’t expect every quarter to provide discounts to them. Our expectations for the next quarters is to be flat, with some variation up and down. . . . Taking into account the bank’s  position today, there are certain risks. They need to change their IT. This is a good year to make IT changes.” Luxoft said revenue tied to No. 2 client, UBS ( UBS ) rose 36%, and “now comprises 21.5% of our revenues,” said Loschin. “We are very optimistic regarding the upcoming work pipeline. . . . “Further, we have been successfully ramping up other major accounts in this vertical, such as Citigroup ( C ) and Credit Suisse ( CS ). The latter is going through many interesting, for us, transformational initiatives. ” For the first nine months of its fiscal year, financial services outsourcing revenue rose nearly 29% to nearly 69% of Luxoft’s total sales, said Chief Financial Officer Roman Yakushkin. Revenue from automotive and transportation outsourcing — in which car-audio maker Harman International Industries ( HAR ) ranks as its top sector client and No. 3 customer overall — rose 39% to 11.6% of total sales. Technology outsourcing rose 36% to 6.9% of sales. Telecom rose 10.5% to 5.7% of sales. Travel and aviation declined 15% to 4.5% of revenue. And energy increased 5.2% to 2% of sales. UBS analyst Steven Milunovich, in a research note issued Friday, reiterated his buy rating on Luxoft stock, with an 84 price target. “The stock is already down . . . on concerns of exposure to DB, UBS, and Credit Suisse,” he said. “However, the slowdown in constant currency growth, apparently largely due to DB, might cause further weakness. We believe strong performance in other verticals might be sufficient to limit downside, though, and the longer-term outlook remains bright.”  

Baidu Says China Execs Have Offered To Buy Video Wing for $2.8 Bil

China search giant Baidu ( BIDU ) announced Friday that the company has received a non-binding proposal from two Baidu executives to acquire the company’s fast-growing Qiyi video wing for $2.8 billion. Already one of China’s largest online video streaming services, Qiyi is looking to become a bigger force in the country’s video-streaming and moviemaking fields, a nearly $6 billion market that also includes Baidu rivals Alibaba Group ( BABA ), Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ) and Sohu.com ( SOHU ). Last year, Netflix ( NFLX ) said it wants to begin operating in China, but the streaming media company has expressed uncertainty about its planned move into the country by 2016. Baidu stock jumped on the news and was up 8% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 152. But Baidu stock is down 26% this year. The non-binding proposal came from Baidu CEO Robin Yanhong Li and Qiyi CEO Yu Gong, Baidu said. The pair have proposed acquiring all of the outstanding shares of Qiyi owned by Baidu based on an enterprise valuation of U.S. $2.8 billion. Should a special committee formed by Baidu to review the offer approve the deal, Qiyi will remain a strategic partner, although it will be independent. Baidu currently owns 80.5% of Qiyi’s total outstanding shares. The transaction would “significantly help Baidu’s margin improvement,” wrote Summit Research analyst Henry Guo in an industry note Friday. “Currently, Qiyi still operates as a loss-making business due to strong video contents competition among deep-pocket players including Tencent and Alibaba Group. “For the past couple of quarters, the Qiyi business had about 5%-6% of negative operating margin impact to Baidu. According to our estimates, iQiyi, as a stand-alone business, had a negative 40%-50% of operating margin in 2015.” Strong Q3 growth for Baidu’s Qiyi video wing was largely due to the company’s aggressive video content acquisition, said Guo, who added that Qiyi’s “content cost was up 84% year over year in Q3, and we have forecasted it to double year over year in the December quarter.” Last year, Alibaba bought out Youku Toudu, a rival streaming content service provider, for $3.7 billion. Guo added that the “valuation implied in Alibaba’s October 100% acquisition of Youku Tudou hurts Qiyi’s negotiation power as Qiyi looks for extra funding to support its aggressive content strategy.” Baidu is to report Q4 earnings after the close on Feb. 25. Last month, Baidu denied a report that it planned IPOs in China for nine of its subsidiaries, including Qiyi. Image provided by Shutterstock .