Diamonds and Dogs

1/7/19

Roku (ROKU) looks good to start the New Year. Roku rose 25%, its best day in 14 months, after announcing the number of active accounts in the fourth quarter rose 40% as more and more consumers move to the streaming platform as a preferred method for consuming television entertainment. Roku's platform users streamed more than 7.3 billion hours of content in the last quarter, a 68 percent surge over the year-ago quarter. Annual streaming hours rose more than 60 percent compared with 2017, to 24 billion hours.

Altria (MO) and Phillip Morris (PM) drop 3% on news E-cigarettes are eating into the market for traditional products at a fast clip. Vaping made its mark on 2018, but going forward, e-cigarettes look poised to have an even bigger impact on combustible-cigarette volumes. E-cigarettes will see rising growth, and that complicates the outlook for traditional tobacco companies. Altria last month invested $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in in the e-cigarette company, Juul.