Free Investing

Trefis submits:
Dish Network (DISH) is the second-largest satellite pay TV provider in the U.S., trailing market leader DirecTV (DTV). In a bid to attract new customers, Dish and DirecTV have both both been adding satellites and beefing up their High Definition (HD) channel counts. Dish Network currently offers more HD channels, but DirecTV is catching up and may well be the first to introduce 3D on television. However, Dish Network recently launched an aggressive promotional that could help it challenge DirecTV going forward. Our analysis follows below.Complete Story »

Trefis submits:
Netflix (NFLX) faces competition in digital video-on-demand and pay-per-view offerings from players like Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), DirecTV (DTV) and Dish Network (DISH). A recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision is likely to increase competition for Netflix as it clears the way for new films to be made available on-demand before such films are available on DVDs. The FCC decision allows movie studios (like Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Disney Studios) to block analog signals on TVs and video recorders when consumers purchase their latest on-demand movies.Complete Story »

Zacks.com submits:
TiVO Inc. (TIVO) shares leaped 5.11% and closed at $8.02, following rumors of a buyout by DirecTV (DTV), according to the Street Insider. However, no concrete information was available from either of the companies.The shares are currently trading near the low of its 52 week range of $7.10 to $18.93. We expect the shares to trade higher on the back of the buyout speculation.Complete Story »

Trefis submits:
Dish Network (DISH) is the third largest pay TV provider in the US and competes with DirecTV (DTV), Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) in the pay-TV market. With a subscriber count of close to 14 million, the company has a vast customer base to leverage and generate profits by offering additional advanced services like high definition (HD) programming. HD services constitute about 7% of the estimated $27 price for Dish Network’s stock. This amounts to close to $900 million in value based on our estimated $11.9 billion valuation for Dish Network’s stock. We estimate that Dish’s HD penetration, which essentially represents the fraction of Dish subscribers also subscribing to its HD services, has grown at a rapid pace in recent years. This figure increased from about a mere 3% in 2006 to about 20% in 2009.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:(This post is part of our series on tracking hedge fund portfolios. If you're unfamiliar with tracking investments they disclose via SEC filings, check out our series preface on hedge fund filings.) Next up is investment guru and legend Julian Robertso,n who founded one of the lauded hedge funds of the era, Tiger Management. He grew the fund from $8 million at inception to over $22 billion at its peak. Between 1980 and 2000, Tiger compounded a gross rate of 31.5%, but after losses of 4% in 1998 and 19% in 1999, Tiger shut down. For more information on Julian, check out Daniel Strackman's book entitled, Julian Robertson: A Tiger in the Land Of Bulls And Bears.Complete Story »

Jim Van Meerten submits: Direct TV (DTV) is having a great year. The company is buying back stock at a fantastic rate. It is also experiencing terrific costs savings as the prices on its equipment is coming down.From its press release:Complete Story »

David I. Templeton submits: It is projected that dividends and stock buyback activity will increase in the second quarter of 2010 versus 2Q 2009. According to Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at Standard & Poor's:[Expectations are that] second quarter 2010 dividend payments will be higher than second quarter 2009, but still 17% off 2Q 2008. A surge in increases is expected late in the third quarter if companies feel secure in their prospects to commit to future payments. 2010 payments are estimated to be up 5.6% to US$206B. This compares to payments of US$196B in 2009, US$248B in 2008, US$247B in 2007, and US$ 225B in 2006.Complete Story »

Trefis submits:
DirecTV (DTV) is the biggest satellite pay TV provider in the US. It competes with other satellite and cable providers like Dish Network (DISH), Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC). The company’s Latin America business is growing rapidly with Q4 2009 being one of the best quarters in terms of revenue and subscriber growth. Despite the high growth, we estimate that DirecTV’s Latin America business constitutes less than 6% of the $32 Trefis price estimate for DirecTV’s stock.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Given our focus on following hedge fund movements, we thought it would be prudent to post up Goldman Sachs' VIP list. The 'VIP' stands for 'Very Important Positions' for hedge funds that employ fundamental strategies rather than technical or trading. In essence, these are the 50 stocks that most frequently appear among the top ten holdings of hedge funds. In our hedge fund portfolio tracking series you may have noticed various stocks popping up over and over again in Goldman's top 10 holdings. This is simply an aggregation of a larger set of data and stems from our previous coverage of the top ten hedgie holdings.This basket of stocks returned 40% in 2009 versus 27% for the S&P 500. Goldman also notes that this list has,Complete Story »

Erick Schonfeld submits: Editor’s note: As the capital markets heat up and the economy continues to rebound, the deal flow is starting to open up again. We’ve already given you our top ten IPO candidates for 2010. In this guest post, Kelly Porter, an M&A expert at Woodside Capital Partners, proposes ten digital media deals he’d like to see. None of the companies mentioned in this editorial are clients of Woodside Capital Partners.Complete Story »