Somewhat Favorable News Coverage Somewhat Unlikely to Affect Capital Senior Living (CSU) Stock Price

Media stories about Capital Senior Living (NYSE:CSU) have trended somewhat positive on Sunday, Accern Sentiment Analysis reports. The research firm rates the sentiment of press coverage by reviewing more than 20 million blog and news sources in real-time. Accern ranks coverage of companies on a scale of negative one to one, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. Capital Senior Living earned a daily sentiment score of 0.01 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned press coverage about the company an impact score of 46.062391046142 out of 100, indicating that recent press coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the stock’s share price in the immediate future.

Shares of Capital Senior Living stock traded down $0.03 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $10.74. 116,499 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 358,548. Capital Senior Living has a 12 month low of $9.15 and a 12 month high of $16.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.06. The stock has a market cap of $334.27 million, a P/E ratio of -37.03 and a beta of 1.16.

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Capital Senior Living (NYSE:CSU) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, May 1st. The company reported ($0.24) EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of ($0.23) by ($0.01). Capital Senior Living had a negative return on equity of 13.74% and a negative net margin of 6.33%. The firm had revenue of $114.64 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $118.59 million. equities analysts anticipate that Capital Senior Living will post -0.63 EPS for the current year.

A number of brokerages have weighed in on CSU. Zacks Investment Research downgraded Capital Senior Living from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 15th. ValuEngine raised shares of Capital Senior Living from a “strong sell” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 8th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut shares of Capital Senior Living from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $13.00 to $10.50 in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd.

About Capital Senior Living

Capital Senior Living Corporation owns, operates, develops, and manages senior housing communities in the United States. The company provides senior living services to the elderly, including independent and assisted living, and home care services. Its independent living services comprise daily meals, transportation, social and recreational activities, laundry, housekeeping, and 24-hour staffing; and access to health screenings, periodic special services, and dietary and similar programs, as well as ongoing exercise and fitness classes.

Best Buy Thought It Could Escape Amazon but Couldn't

It has been a day since Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) posted moderately poor results. They raised the specter of Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) relentless cannibalization of Best Buy, which some thought was slowing. They were wrong.

The story of how Amazon has destroyed and will destroy the brick-and-mortar retail industry is ancient now, but it continues to be repeated as retailer after retailer reports poor results. Some may go the way of Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD), parent of Sears and Kmart, toward inevitable bankruptcy. Best Buy is healthier and could hang on for decades. However, its e-commerce business is just too small to make a difference to the overall company.

Best Buy said its most recent quarter was better than expected, which means management had fairly low expectations beforehand. Revenue rose from $8.5 billion to $9.1 billion. However, operating income as a percentage of revenue dropped from 3.5% to 2.9%. The horrible news was this:

Domestic online revenue of $1.14 billion increased 12.0% on a comparable basis primarily due to higher average order values and higher conversion rates. As a percentage of total Domestic revenue, online revenue increased 70 basis points to 13.6% versus 12.9% last year.

Not even a glimmer that online sales will ever approach those in stores, which is what’s needed to keep viability long term.

Best Buy has had some periods during which its stock rallied in recent years. That is over now. Its shares are up less than 3% this year, while Amazon’s are higher by 34%.

There was a time when Best Buy management worried about “showrooming.” People would look at merchandise at Best Buy and then shop for price, often buying the items on Amazon. That process probably never lessened. In the long term, Best Buy will disappear as a pillar of consumer electronics. It is only left to consider how long that might take.

Best Buy’s description of itself:

We at Best Buy work hard every day to enrich the lives of consumers through technology, whether they come to us online, visit our stores or invite us into their homes. We do this by solving technology problems and addressing key human needs across a range of areas, including entertainment, productivity, communication, food, security and health.

ALSO READ: Companies With the Best and Worst Reputations

Vedanta falls 3.5% as Tamil Nadu govt mulls permanent closure of copper smelter at Thoothukudi

Vedanta��s shares fell over 3.5 percent in the morning trade as investors remained cautious of tensions at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, which houses its copper unit.

The stock has touched an intraday high of Rs 249.10 and an intraday low of Rs 241.50.

On Thursday, authorities cut the power to the smelter. The Pollution Control Board of Tamil Nadu said the smelter, which was shut pending renewal of its operating license, was found last week to be preparing to resume production without permission.

In fact, the Tamil Nadu government also said that it was seeking a permanent closure of a big copper smelter run by Vedanta Resources PLC after 13 people died in protests demanding the closure of the plant on environmental grounds.

"The government's position is very clear, it doesn't want the plant to run," said Sandeep Nanduri, the top official of the district where the plant is located, after a meeting with senior state government officials.

Other state officials confirmed the government's position.

In the past one month, the stock has fallen over 18 percent, while its three-day loss stood at 10 percent. At 10:52 hrs, Vedanta was quoting at Rs 243.80, down Rs 6.60, or 2.64 percent, on the BSE.

(With inputs from Reuters)

QIWI Is 42% Overvalued

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We believe that QIWI Plc (QIWI) is overvalued. QIWI is a Russian company that trades on the Nasdaq. We see that many investors have a poor understanding of the company's processes. QIWI is losing out due to the competition of major players. It is highly dependent on one business line, which is has regulatory and competitive risks. Below we will provide our point of view on QIWI.

No core competence to win in a tougher market

In their 20-F SEC filing, QIWI admits that competition will negatively affect the company's market position:

As major commercial and retail banks increase their online and virtual presence and come up with increasingly sophisticated products directly competing with our core competencies, our competitive position could be severely undermined, resulting in reduced demand for our products, both with respect to our payment services business and the other financial services projects that we are pursuing.

Let's look at QIWI's e-commerce segment. In 2017, the e-commerce segment net revenue comprised 51% of company's total net revenue. According to Credit Suisse research on QIWI from April 7, 2017, 85% of QIWI e-commerce payments come from betting, gaming, and social networks. But the number of payment options for a customer continues increasing as new players enter the market.

Here is an example: the online gaming industry. Mail.ru estimates online gaming market in Russia to be ��56.7bn in 2016 ($0.9bn) with a CAGR of 24% over the last five years; according to our estimates, Mail.ru controls about 50% of this market. In 2017, mobile operators Megafon, MTS, Veon, Tele2, and Yota started to fight for players' payments and even canceled commissions. Here is Warface by Mail.ru's payment page, and today players have 11 different options to pay for their purchase: Source: Warface

Below is a screenshot of a payment page from Liga Stavok, which controls 9.3% of the Russian offline sports betting market and is the third most visited betting website in Russia:

Source: Liga Stavok

A player has eight different options to make a no-commission payment, including the following:

By card: 90.6% of all Russian internet users have at least one bank card By Yandex.Money, a Sberbank-controlled company with 59.5% e-wallet market share vs. QIWI's 53.7% By Alfa-Bank online banking, the third largest bank by the number of debit card users By cash in Svyaznoy stores, an electronics retailer, and payment processing company with 2,800 stores in virtually every mall in Russia

By the moment of payment, most consumers will have money in their bank account or in their mobile phone account. Making a payment does not require them to take any extra actions. To pay via QIWI, a consumer has to take extra actions.

Retail banks and mobile operators own an "ecosystem" that their customers use on a daily basis and is where they keep the money. QIWI's main disadvantage with regard to competition is that they are nothing but a payment company. We believe that increasing competition will inevitably result in the payments yield's decline and in QIWI's market share drop.

High dependence on betting and online games

On April 24, 2018, JPMorgan published some research on QIWI. In their research, JPMorgan refers to their Q&A session with QIWI's CEO, CFO, and IR as sources. According to them, 7.5% of all QIWI payments, or 40% of e-commerce payments, currently come from the betting industry. In fact, QIWI is doing a great job in betting: They became one of the two largest Interactive Bets Accounting Centers, set up with the association of bookmakers in Russia.

QIWI believes that their share in this market may exceed 50% in the next two to three years, up from the current 20%. And industry growth of 25% per year is forecast. According to Reiting Bukmekerov research, the current size of Russian sports betting market is ��403bn ($6.5bn), and the potential for this market is ��1'200bn ($19.3bn). Their estimates seem accurate when compared to QIWI's statements. With 25% annual growth, it will take the market five years to reach this level. If this happens, QIWI will increase their net revenue from betting to $289mln in five years - four times what it is now.

By our calculations, based on JPMorgan research and QIWI's 2017 financial statement, betting contributes 16% to company's total net revenue (��2.1bn of ��12.6bn). Betting net revenue compared to IFRS net profit is 67%.

We trust QIWI's estimates and believe that the company has the potential to increase their betting market share. However, we see legal risks, which will be discussed below. In emerging markets, it's usually fine when one of the business lines is at legal risk. But in this case, it is their main business line.

Government risks

QIWI has an advantage that often helps it leave competitors, such as retail banks, behind and requires customers take a few extra actions to pay via QIWI. This advantage is anonymity of payments. QIWI is not a bank and does not have legal obligation to identify its customers. Payments up to ��40,000 per month (higher than the average monthly salary in Russia) can be made after registering with a phone number only, which means anonymously.

From our research, this has three use-cases:

Use-Case 1: Betting, gaming, and online casinos. As per Russian tax code (Part 2, Article 228), a physical person is responsible for tax declaration and payment on winnings up to ��15,000 - 40% of an average Russian's monthly income. QIWI leaves space to let players win and stay anonymous, hence avoid taxes. Use-Case 2: JPMorgan's report says that QIWI is an attractive platform for the self-employed, such as tutors and personal trainers. QIWI identifies such accounts and charges them a fee for P2P transactions. This does not comply with Russian tax code, by which such citizens are subject to tax accounting. In fact, such transactions are often used by criminal entities; QIWI P2P transactions are a cheap way to anonymously buy/sell cryptocurrency in Russia. Use-Case 3: According to Rosstat, 1.543mln migrant workers legally worked in Russia in 2016. According to Federal Migration Service information provided for MIR24 in 2016, about 1.5mln migrant workers work in Russia illegally. Of those, 99.9% come from CIS countries, where QIWI operates a chain of payment terminals. Legal and illegal migrant workers use QIWI wallets to transfer money to their home countries, and they need anonymity to avoid taxation.

Proposals to completely prohibit anonymous e-wallets are being raised by government officials in Russia. In January 2018, it was reported that the CBR, Rosfinmonitoring and the Ministry of Finance are actively discussing newly proposed legislation that would ban the use of anonymous e-wallets completely, or at least prohibit the reloading of such e-wallets other than from a bank account. Russian lawmakers normally demonstrate scrutiny in matters of anonymous use of the internet. A very recent example is the ban of Telegram, which was executed within a matter of days.

QIWI is a company that exploits legal arbitrage opportunities in Russia, and the government is not OK with it. Therefore, we believe that there is a strong legal risk for QIWI's business. Another question is this: If QIWI has to identify all of their clients, how many will choose QIWI to top up their betting account next time?

Currency risks

QIWI's stocks are traded on the Nasdaq and their price is quoted in U.S. dollars, while they process payments in Russian rubles. We expect the ruble to decrease vs. the dollar in 2018, and QIWI is exposed to this rate change.

Suspicious CEO share increase

On April 27, 2018, Sergey Solonin (QIWI CEO and main owner) borrowed money from Credit Suisse to buy Kirill Evdakov's (QIWI co-founder) stake. Solonin bought 495,423 Class A shares at the price of $15.72.

There are two types of shares in QIWI Plc:

Class A - gives the holder 10 votes Class B - gives the holder 1 vote

Both A and B class shares receive the same dividends. The shares in free float are Class B shares, and on April 27 their price was $18.11. This means that Solonin bought shares that give 10 times the control of Class B shares at a price 13% lower than the market price of Class B shares.

Kirill Evdakov could have sold his shares to anybody at the market price, but chose to sell them to Sergey Solonin at 13% cheaper than the market and receive $1.2mln less for the deal than he could of gotten. We believe that this is a bearish signal. Evdakov agreed to sell shares cheaper than market only if he believed the market wouldn't buy this many shares. Solonin already had a 59.44% voting interest in QIWI, and this deal cannot be explained by his desire to get more control over the company. Solonin agreed to buy Evdakov's shares because there were no other buyers and he feared that the sale could result in a price drop.

Downside potential calculation

We made a DCF model for this stock, and we believe QIWI is 42% overvalued. Fair price of the company is about $650mln (currently it's $1,123mln), or $10.67 per share. Our valuation does not include regulation and currency risk, which we believe will have a negative impact on the share price.

When we see a downside potential for a company, we usually stay neutral or recommend selling it. But in this case, our recommendation is to go short QIWI.

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.

$0.61 Earnings Per Share Expected for Syneos Health (SYNH) This Quarter

Equities research analysts expect Syneos Health (NASDAQ:SYNH) to report earnings of $0.61 per share for the current fiscal quarter, according to Zacks Investment Research. Five analysts have provided estimates for Syneos Health’s earnings, with the highest EPS estimate coming in at $0.65 and the lowest estimate coming in at $0.59. Syneos Health posted earnings of $0.64 per share during the same quarter last year, which would indicate a negative year-over-year growth rate of 4.7%. The firm is expected to issue its next quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 26th.

According to Zacks, analysts expect that Syneos Health will report full year earnings of $2.67 per share for the current fiscal year, with EPS estimates ranging from $2.63 to $2.80. For the next year, analysts forecast that the company will post earnings of $3.09 per share, with EPS estimates ranging from $3.00 to $3.20. Zacks Investment Research’s EPS calculations are an average based on a survey of sell-side analysts that that provide coverage for Syneos Health.

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Syneos Health (NASDAQ:SYNH) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 9th. The company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $761.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $767.24 million. Syneos Health had a negative net margin of 5.50% and a positive return on equity of 8.79%. The firm’s revenue was up 201.9% on a year-over-year basis.

Several analysts have commented on the stock. Barclays reissued an “equal weight” rating and set a $43.00 price target (up from $40.00) on shares of Syneos Health in a research report on Thursday, March 1st. SunTrust Banks increased their price target on shares of Syneos Health to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 1st. Zacks Investment Research lowered shares of Syneos Health from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 14th. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group began coverage on shares of Syneos Health in a research report on Friday, April 20th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $50.00 price target for the company. Finally, ValuEngine lowered shares of Syneos Health from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, April 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. The stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $50.40.

Shares of SYNH stock traded up $0.25 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $40.40. 574,751 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 847,112. The firm has a market cap of $4.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.28, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.79. Syneos Health has a 52-week low of $31.10 and a 52-week high of $61.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.09.

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Wesbanco Bank Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Syneos Health in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $998,000. CIBC World Markets Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Syneos Health in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $231,000. Xact Kapitalforvaltning AB purchased a new position in shares of Syneos Health in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $270,000. Royal Bank of Canada purchased a new position in shares of Syneos Health in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $656,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new position in shares of Syneos Health in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,933,000.

Syneos Health Company Profile

Syneos Health, Inc operates as an integrated biopharmaceutical solutions company in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. It operates through two segments, Clinical Solutions and Commercial Solutions. The Clinical Solutions segment offers various clinical development services spanning Phase I to Phase IV, including full-service global studies, as well as unbundled service offerings, such as clinical monitoring, investigator recruitment, patient recruitment, data management, and study startup to assist customers with drug development process.

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The Long-Term Trend That Makes Netflix an Awesome Buy

The traditional cable and satellite business keeps shrinking. Consumers have been cutting the cord in numbers that have steadily gone up since 2013, the first year the industry posted a year-over-year subscriber drop.

That's exceptionally good news for Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) which serves as a viable way for cord cutters to drop cable but still have access to high-quality programming. As more customers opt to drop cable or elect to go for cheaper "skinny" bundles with limited channels, the streaming leader should continue to post big gains.

Coupled with cable's subscriber losses is the fact that broadband internet has grown at a pace that's faster than cable cord cutting. That essentially creates a growing group of people for Netflix to target.

Year Pay TV gains/losses Internet gains

2012	170,000	2,000,000
2013	-105,000	2,600,000
2014	-125,000	3,000,000
2015	-385,000	3,100,000
2016	-795,000	2,700,000
2017	-1,495,000	2,100,000

Data source: Leichtman Research Group.

How big is cord cutting?

As you can see from the numbers above, cord-cutting roughly tripled in 2015, then doubled again in each of the past two years. In reality, however, the numbers are worse because the pay-TV counts on the chart above include 2,212,000 people who subscribe to DISH Network's Sling TV and�1,155,000 subscribed to�AT&T's DirecTV Now.

Those services offer stripped-down lineups of channels aimed at allowing cable/satellite to hold onto at least some revenue from cord-cutters. That likely works in some cases, but the existence of cheaper live-streaming options may actually tip some on-the-fence customers to mostly cut the cord, replacing it with a cheaper TV package as well as Netflix.

Basically, the market is creating the perfect storm for Netflix. An increasing amount of consumers have broadband internet and are looking for entertainment options that cost less than cable.

Year 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Netflix total global subscribers at year end	44 million	57.4 million	75 million	93.8 million	117.6 million

Data source: Netflix. Table by Motley Fool contributor Natalie Walters.

Netflix keeps getting better

Cord cutting may level off at some point or it may not as younger consumers more used to consuming content on phones and tablets than televisions set up their own households. In addition to cable losing customers and more people adding broadband, Netflix also keeps growing its library.

While the streaming service has offered a strong selection nearly from the point it committed to adding original content alongside its library of movies and older TV shows, its offering gets better continually. A new member joining now could spend months just catching up on the service's series of Marvel shows or spend a sad week or so watching only Adam Sandler originals.

Netflix keeps getting stronger as it adds more proprietary original content. Image source: Netflix.

Watch out for the Mouse

Netflix's content library of originals has gotten so large that most companies could not compete unless they committed tens of billions of dollars over many years. The only real exception to that is Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) which has an archive of well-loved content as well as intellectual property rights that includes Star Wars, much of the Marvel universe, Pixar, and classic Disney characters.

The Mouse House will launch a Netflix-like streaming service at some point in 2019. It's possible that some potential and existing Netflix customers may opt for the Disney product. It's also likely that the addition of such a strong streaming player will push more people to cut the cord.

Netflix can chill

The streaming leader has built up an impressive library of content and that's a competitive moat. Yes, Disney and to a lesser extent HBO have the content to compete, but even other major media players like Comcast and Sony lack the libraries or intellectual property to be real rivals.

Perhaps mergers or content library deals might create one more viable player, but after that, the pickings would be slim. Netflix has put itself in a perfect position to capitalize on current market trends while owning content assets that will prove valuable should delivery methods change again in the future.