Category Archives: etf

Netflix Signs Programming Deal With Hispanic TV Leader Univision

Cable and broadcast TV networks often put past seasons of current shows on streaming video services to monetize content and draw new viewers. Streaming video service Netflix ( NFLX ) is now going the other way and putting past seasons of two of its shows on a cable channel. Netflix and Univision Communications announced a promotional deal that will bring the first seasons of the Netflix original series “Narcos” and “Club de Cuervos” to broadcast television on the Univision Network and UniMas channels. “Narcos” is a crime drama and “Club de Cuervos” is a Spanish-language comedy-drama. The shows will air on Univision networks ahead of their exclusive season-two premieres on Netflix. “Promoting these original shows on Univision is a great way to further reach Hispanic audiences and help them discover Netflix,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer,  said in a statement . Netflix and Univision also announced plans to coproduce the drama series, “El Chapo,” based on the life story of one of the world’s most notorious criminals. “El Chapo” will be available to Netflix members in the U.S. following its television airing on UniMas in 2017. In the rest of the world, episodes of “El Chapo” will premiere exclusively on Netflix. Netflix stock fell 0.6% to 88.63 on the stock market today . RELATED: Netflix Gets Vote Of Confidence From RBC Amid Heightened Skepticism

Hitting A Home Run With Our SPY Put Spread

We have another home run here, a 13.02% profit in only 6 trading days. Friday the 13th seems as good a day as any to take a profit. Also, we are realizing 87.17%of the maximum potential profit in the S&P 500 SPDR’s (NYSEARCA: SPY ) May , 2016 $210-$213 in-the-money vertical bear put spread. In the highly unlikely event that we have a major rally in stocks next week, we now have new dry powder to play with, having cut our net short position in the from 40% to 20%. If you have the ProShares Short S&P 500 Short Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: SH ) (click here for the prospectus here ), or the ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 Short Fund 2X ETF (NYSEARCA: SDS ) (click here for the prospectus here ), keep them. We are going lower. This trade takes our performance up to a blockbuster 10.37% so far in May, and 11.58% since the beginning of 2016. These are numbers almost anyone would kill for. I never bought this week’s rally in the Dow Average for two seconds. No volume, no news, and no cross asset class confirmations meant it was not to be believed. It was just another opportunity for the high frequency traders to pick the pockets of hedge funds by squeezing them out of their shorts, which they have been doing on a weekly basis all year. That conviction allowed me to hang on to my aggressive 40% net short position, until now. This takes my Trade Alert performance to a new all time high of over 203.26%. Better yet, WE ARE POISED TO MAKE AS MUCH AS A 14% PROFIT BY THE END OF NEXT WEEK WITH OUR REMAINING POSITIONS! To remind you of why we are short the S&P 500 in a major way, let me refresh your memories. It’s all about the strong dollar. A robust buck diminishes the foreign earnings of the big American multinationals, major components of the S&P 500. I think it is much more likely that stocks grind down in coming weeks to first retest the unchanged on 2016 level at $2,043, and then the 200-day moving average at $2,012. Share prices are anything but inspirational here. Price earnings multiples are at all time highs at 19X. The calendar is hugely negative. Soggy and heavily financially engineered Q1 earnings reports came and went. Huge hedge fund shorts have been covered with large losses, and no one is in a rush to jump back into the short side. Oh, and the is bumping up against granite like two year resistance at $2014 that will take months to break through in the best case. Did I mention that US equity mutual funds have been net sellers of stock since 2014? This position is also a hedge against what I call “The Dreaded Flat Line of Death” Scenario. This is where the market doesn’t move at all over a prolonged period of time and no one makes any money at all, except us. If I am right on all of this May will come in as the most profitable month for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader Trade Alert Service in more than a year. For new subscribers, your timing is perfect! To see how to enter this trade in your online platform, please look at the order ticket below, which I pulled off of optionshouse . The best execution can be had by placing your bid for the entire spread in the middle market and waiting for the market to come to you. The difference between the bid and the offer on these deep in-the-money spread trades can be enormous. Don’t execute the legs individually or you will end up losing much of your profit. Spread pricing can be very volatile on expiration months farther out. Here are the specific trades you need to execute this position: Sell 37 May, 2016 $213 puts at………….….……$8.40 Buy to cover short 37 May, 2016 $210 puts at…..$5.45 Net Cost:…………………………………………………..$2.95 Potential Profit: $2.95 – $2.61 = $0.34 (37 X 100 X $0.34) = $1,258 or 13.02% profit in 6 trading days. Time for Some Downside Protection Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Retail Sales Back To Health; ETFs To Watch

Finally, the U.S. economy got a nice economic reading. Overall retail sales expanded 1.3% in April from March, representing the largest gain since March 2015. April retail sales beat economists’ forecast of a 0.8% rise . This came as a nice surprise as weaker-than-expected April’s job data gave investors a gloomy picture on the economic growth momentum a few days back. Sales excluding auto nudged up 0.8%. As per tradingeconomics , sales growth was witnessed in 11 out of the 13 major categories. Sales at motor vehicle and parts (up 3.2%), gasoline stations (2.2%) and non-store retailers (2.1%) were the major growth drivers. Web-based shopping saw a surge in the month as online retailers came up with the strongest sales gain since June 2014 . Moreover, the University of Michigan indicated that its consumer sentiment index rose 6.8 points to 95.8 early May, marking the strongest reading since June. Market Impact However, each of the three retail ETFs – the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: XRT ) , the Market Vectors Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: RTH ) and the PowerShares Dynamic Retail Portfolio ETF (NYSEARCA: PMR ) – lost despite the upbeat retail sales data. Following the release of data on May 13, 2016, XRT, RTH and PMR shed about 1.4%, about 1.2% and over 1.3% respectively. XRT gained slightly after hours of May 13. It seems that scars of lackluster retail earnings are prominent in investors’ mind. And thus, investors paid less attention to this reassuring data. Moreover, departmental stores like Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN ) shed big time on May 13 following earnings released on May 12, which took a toll on the retail ETFs. In any case, department stores have been under pressure lately. Macy’s (NYSE: M ) , Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS ) , J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP ) and many others soured investors’ mood this earnings season. Road Ahead Whatever the case, April retail sales data indicates that the U.S. economy is progressing at a decent clip to end Q2 (given that consumer spending makes up about 70% of the U.S. GDP) and is less likely to stagger like it did in Q1. In the first quarter, the economy grew just 0.5%. Wage gains probably helped in pulling off the April retail sales data to some extent. In the future, a dovish Fed may act as a tailwind as a few more months of a cheap dollar should boost consumers’ purchases as well as the investing world. With this, market watchers may again start wagering on an earlier-than-expected Fed rate hike, though the other economic readings need to come in stronger for that. Investors should note that each of the three retail ETFs are Buy-rated now, with RTH having a Zacks ETF Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and XRT and PMR carrying a Zacks ETF Rank #2 (Buy). Since consumers splurged on restaurants and online shopping, investors can also look at T he Restaurant ETF (NASDAQ: BITE ) and the First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSEARCA: FDN ) , which focuses on online retailers like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY ) . Original Post