Category: INO.com Contributors

Disney - Avengers: Endgame, Streaming, and Fox

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Disney (DIS) is looking to continue off of Captain Marvel’s success with Avengers: Endgame debuting April 26th, 2019. Captain Marvel has already brought in more $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue and leading all 2019 movies by a wide margin. Disney is betting huge on Avengers: Endgame taking the torch to the $2 billion box office milestone, a feat that’s only been accomplished four times, one of them being Avengers: Infinity War last year with $2.05 billion. All the initiatives that Disney has taken over the previous two years to restore growth appear to be coming to fruition, namely its Fox (FOX) acquisition and it's streaming initiatives. The Fox acquisition is complete for the combined entity; thus Fox’s assets are now definitively being absorbed by Disney. Disney continues to invest heavily into its streaming services such as Hulu, ESPN Plus and it's soon to be released Disney branded streaming service that will directly compete with Netflix (NFLX). The Fox acquisition brings a majority stake in Hulu (60% ownership) while its ESPN Plus launched earlier this year and has over 2 million subscribers. Disney continues to dominate at the box office while posting great growth at its theme parks translating into robust and durable revenue streams. The company is evolving to meet the new age of media consumption demands of the consumer via streaming and on-demand content. Disney has been on an uptrend as of late, breaking through the $115 relative to an all-time of ~$120. I’ve been behind Disney for a long time, especially through this transition back to growth and I still feel that the company offers a compelling long-term investment opportunity given its growth catalysts that will continue to bear fruit over the coming years. Goldman Sachs recently championed Disney’s reinvention efforts and boosted its target price to $142, a 20% increase from the $115 current share price.

Goldman Sachs Backs Fox Acquisition and Future

Goldman Sachs has changed its view on Disney after the investment bank removed Disney from its buy recommendation in December of 2017. Now Goldman Sachs has come out to back Disney and labeled the stock as a buy. It's "the dawn of a new era" after the company bought the media assets of Twenty-First Century Fox, the acquisition which Goldman advised. Now the impending launch of Disney Plus marks a "momentous" shift in content monetization, though investors will need to be patient with some heavy lifting around the launch, suggests Drew Borst. Continue reading "Disney - Avengers: Endgame, Streaming, and Fox" →

Easy Money vs. Free Money - Choose Your Poison

Posted on by George Yacik

When I was in high school, one of my political science teachers explained to us that the political spectrum wasn’t so much a straight line – with the liberals on the left and the conservatives on the right – but was really shaped like a horseshoe, with the far left and the far right moving closer together at the outer fringes to the point where they almost meet. That the name-calling and the accusations – and the behavior – are most vehement at the outer edges doesn’t change the fact that the things they say they believe in are virtually indistinguishable from each other, only the labels are different.

President Trump’s plan to nominate Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve is a good example. These two men have undisputed conservative credentials and are also in sync with the president’s demand that the Fed adopt an easy money policy so as not to undermine U.S. economic and stock market gains. Not surprisingly, that makes them completely unacceptable to the left.
There’s been the obligatory hand-wringing and phony outrage by their opponents decrying that Trump “means to remake the 105-year-old agency into a partisan tool” (the Washington Post) and “trample over the Fed’s independence” (the Financial Times). We got the same blather when Trump nominated someone to the Supreme Court – which, we’ve been told, is completely independent and never, ever takes politics into consideration when it decides cases, and justices are never, ever chosen because of their perceived political views.

Already, even before they’ve been formally nominated by the White House, Trump’s opponents have started to dredge up all the dirty laundry they can about Cain – alleged sexual harassment eight years ago – and Moore – all the juicy details about his divorce. Whether or not those past sins will be enough to torpedo their nominations remains to be seen. But it’s likely their personal peccadillos – not their actual monetary and economic philosophies – will be the main focus of their nomination hearings, should they even get that far. Continue reading "Easy Money vs. Free Money - Choose Your Poison" →

Crude Oil Nearing Resistance

Posted on by Chris Vermeulen

The recent recovery in Crude Oil has, partially, been based on increasing expectations of a global economic recovery taking place and the continued news that the US/China will work out a trade deal. Crude inventories. Just last week US Crude Oil inventories came in at +7.2 million barrels vs. expectations of -425,000 barrels (). Additionally, concerns in Syria and Libya are pushing prices a bit higher as well. Whenever there are supply concerns or uncertainty out of this region, prices tend to rise.

The facts remain very dynamic for Oil. The US is continuing to produce more and more oil and is expected to become a “net exporter” of oil this year. Economic issues will, eventually, resolve themselves, yet we don’t know the final outcome of these trade deals or how the economy will react to any milestones that are required within the final settlement. And, again, these continuing issues in Libya, Syria and near this region are likely to cause some increased levels of uncertainty over the next 60+ days.

Our researchers believe the $65.00 level will act as resistance to this current upswing. We believe the upside price move may continue to levels near $67.50 before weakening and beginning a topping formation. We believe our expectation that precious metals will bottom near April 21~24 is key to understanding the dynamics of this move in Oil. As long as FEAR does not enter the market, then Oil will likely react to impulse factors exclusively related to Oil. Once Gold breaks out above $1500 per ounce, our belief is that Oil will react to fear factors related to some broader economic event driving investors into precious metals. Continue reading "Crude Oil Nearing Resistance" →

Copper Trade: Stopped Out

Posted on by Aibek Burabayev

A month ago I got the short entry trigger in the copper futures. The idea started to emerge this February, and I was watching copper closely from that time and posted updates for you. And you witnessed how I moved entry triggers higher and higher until the price has finally pushed below the last one. And this was the true benefit of avoiding simple guessing to wait for the signal.

In the chart below I would like to show you how that trade was managed and what the outcome was.

Copper Futures Daily Chart: Walked Away Without A Scratch

price of copper
Chart courtesy of tradingview.com

The price of copper showed great volatility around the entry level (blue line) moving within a 10 cent range between $2.87 and $2.97. This happens due to a clash of opposite market forces at the extreme levels. Finally, the bears took the ball and pushed the price not only below the range but also below the crucial orange trendline support. Copper has hit the one month low at the $2.8345 on the 25th of March. At that stage, the short position had a profit of 3%, and I moved the stop to breakeven to enjoy the safe ride. This is a part of trade management as we should try to avoid risks as much as we can because we cannot control the market; we can only control ourselves and manage our risk. Continue reading "Copper Trade: Stopped Out" →

Round 2: Trump Vs. OPEC

Posted on by Robert Boslego

With oil prices having staged a recovery during the first quarter of 2019, primarily due to the withholding of oil supplies from Saudi Arabia, President Trump has once again entered the oil market as a threat. Not since OPEC’s founding in 1960 has an American president been as vocal or involved as Trump.

Trump’s intervention in “Round 1,” summarized below, shocked the market, causing a massive price collapse. However, with close scrutiny of the president’s views, both before taking office and over the past year, the market should not have been so surprised.

Saudi Arabia is in a delicate position. On the one hand, it needs oil prices in the $80s to support it's country’s budget, even if lifting costs are $10 or less. It also knows that a “high price” is not the best price longer-term, due to cutbacks in demand and the increasing availability of substitutes, such as U.S. shale.

But possibly most importantly, it depends on the U.S. for its security. And looking forward, it wants U.S. investment to help diversify its economy as the oil age wanes.

Simply put, it cannot afford to ignore this U.S. president, whose first international trip was to KSA. There is an important political and economic link to the U.S. that it did not have even one president ago (Obama). And its arch-nemesis, Iran, at the same time is being severely harassed by President Trump. Continue reading "Round 2: Trump Vs. OPEC" →