For a good part of this year, the PowerShares Dynamic Media Portfolio (NYSEArca: PBS) enjoyed the consumer discretionary sector’s surge, riding its way to one of the better performances among non-biotech industry funds.
Then last week arrived, bringing with it an almost 5% decline for PBS. Disappointing second quarter earnings results from a handful of broadcast companies and concerns over consumers ditching paid TV services plagued PBS. Last week, Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) caught investors off guard and revealed a weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue, reports Cecile Daurat for Bloomberg.
On its own, bad earnings news from Dow component Disney would be problematic enough for PBS. After all, the stock is the ETF’s third-largest holding at a weight of over 5.5%. However, earnings woes faced by PBS are not contained to Disney. The media industry experienced an even steeper sell off Thursday, following the disappointing results from Viacom (NasdaqGS: VIA.B) and 21st Century Fox (NasdaqGS: FOX), the Wall Street Journal reports.
Investors are also losing confidence in the industry as media companies revealed shrinking U.S. ad sales and profits that were supported by share repurchases. [Cord-Cutting Hampers Media ETF]
PBS investors are not the only ones being pinched by the recent retrenchment in media stocks. Hedge funds, among the biggest backers of media stocks in recent years, are feeling the pain of pullbacks in media stocks, such as those held by PBS.
“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
