“Hedge funds have been near-constant champions of the industry, drawn in by its high cash generation and buybacks, takeover speculation and the straight-up momentum of the stocks themselves,” report Oliver Renick and Callie Bost for Bloomberg.
The consumer discretionary sector has been one of the biggest drivers of S&P 500 dividend growth since the financial crisis and the sector has been prolific when it comes to share repurchases. Merger and acquisitions activity is picking up as the economy gains momentum and could continue even through an interest rate hike, a factor that previously lured professional investors to media stocks. [M&A Could Lift These ETFs]
“More than $110 billion in media takeovers have been announced in the past year, including Charter Communications Inc.’s pending $79 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc. In the same period, media companies in the index repurchased an average $2.22 billion of their own shares, more than any other industry in the S&P 500 apart from technology,” according to Bloomberg.
PowerShares Dynamic Media Portfolio
