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Washington’s Attack on Online Advertising Revenues Disguised as Tax Reform

Washington’s Attack on Online Advertising Revenues Disguised as Tax Reform

When we look at the creative destruction associated with our Connected Society investing theme, on the positive side we see new technologies transforming how people communicate, transact, shop and consume content. That change in how people consume TV, movies, music, books, and newspapers has led to a sea change in where companies are spending their advertising dollars given the consumer’s growing preference for mobile consumption on smartphones, tablets and even laptops over fixed location consumption in the home. This has spurred cord cutters and arguably is one of the reasons why AT&T (T) is looking to merge with Time Warner (TWX).

Data from eMarketer puts digital media advertising at $129.2 billion in 2021, up from $83 billion this year with big gains from over the air radio as well as TV advertising. As a result, eMarketer sees, “TV’s share of total spend will decline from 35.2% in 2017 to 30.8% by 2021.”

That shift in advertising dollars to digital and mobile platforms away from radio, print and increasingly TV has created a windfall for companies like Facebook (FB) and Alphabet (GOOGL) as companies re-allocate their advertising dollars. With our Connected Society investing theme expanding from smartphones and tablets into other markets like the Connected Car and Connected Home, odds are companies will look to advertising related business models to help keep service costs down. We’ve seen this already at Content is King contenders Pandora (P) as well as Spotify, both of which use advertising to allow free, but limited streaming music to listeners. Outside the digital lifestyle, other companies have embraced this practice such as movie theater companies like Regal Cinema Group (RGC) that use pre-movie advertising on the big screen to help defray costs.

As we point out, however, in Cocktail Investing, investors need to keep tabs on developments in Washington for they can potentially be disruptive to business models and that could lead to revisions to both revenue and earnings expectations. Case in point, current Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady recently acknowledged that there “may be a need” to look at some of the revenue raisers to complete his 2017 tax reform proposal. One item was revisiting the idea to convert advertising from being a fully deductible business expense – as it has been for over a century – to just half deductible, with the rest being amortized over the course of a decade.

The sounds you just heard was jaws dropping at the thought that this might happen and what it could mean to revenue and earnings expectations for Facebook, Alphabet, Twitter (TWTR), Snap (SNAP), Disney (DIS), CBS (CBS), The New York Times (NYT) and all the other companies for which advertising is a key part of their business model.

Other jaws dropping were those had by economists remembering the 2014 IHS study that showed the country’s $297 billion in advertising spending generated $5.5 trillion in sales, or 16% of the nation’s total economic activity, and created 20 million jobs, roughly 14% of total US employment at the time. Those same economists are likely doing some quick math as to what the added headwind would be to an economy that grew less than 1 percent in 1Q 2017 and how it would impact future job creation should an advertising tax be initiated. It’s hard to imagine such an initiative going over well with a president that is looking to streamline and simplify the tax code, especially when one of his key campaign promises was to lower tax rates.

As we talked on the last several Cocktail Investing Podcasts, there are several headwinds that will restrain the speed of the domestic economy – the demographic shift and subsequent change in spending associated with our Aging of the Population investing theme and the wide skill set disparity noted in the monthly JOLTs report that bodes well for our Tooling & Retooling investment theme are just two examples. Our view is incremental taxes like those that could be placed on advertising would be a net contributor to the downside of our Economic Acceleration/Deceleration investing theme.

That’s how we see it, but investors in some of the high-flying stocks that have driven the Nasdaq Composite Index more than 17 percent higher year to date should ponder what this could mean to not only the market, but the shares of Facebook, Alphabet, and others. In our experience, one of the quickest ways to torpedo a stock price is big earnings revisions to the downside. With the S&P 500 trading at more than 18x expected 2017 earnings, a skittish market faced with a summer slowdown and pushed out presidential policies could be looking for an excuse to move lower and taking the wind out of this aspect of the technology sails could be it.

Previewing AT&T (T) Earnings and Watching Capital Spending Levels for Dycom (DY)

Previewing AT&T (T) Earnings and Watching Capital Spending Levels for Dycom (DY)

After today’s market close when Connected Society company AT&T (T) reports its 1Q 2017 results we will get the first of our Tematica Select List earnings for this week. This Thursday we’ll get quarterly results from both Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet (GOOGL) with several more to follow next week.

Getting back to AT&T, consensus expectations call for the company to deliver EPS of $0.74 on revenue of $40.57 billion for the March quarter. As we have come to appreciate, these days forward guidance is as important as the rear view mirror look at the recently completed quarter; missing either can pressure shares, and mission both only magnifies that pressure. For the current (June 2017) quarter, consensus expectations are looking for AT&T to earn between $0.72—$0.79 on revenue of $40.2-$41.3 billion.

Setting the state for AT&T’s results, last week Verizon (VZ) issued its March quarter results that saw both its revenue and earnings miss expectations. Buried in the results, we found decreased overage revenue, lower postpaid customers and continued promotional activity led to a year on year revenue delicate for Verizon Wireless. The culprits were the shift to unlimited plans and growing emphasis on price plans that likely led to customer switching during the quarter.

If AT&T were still a mobile-centric company, we’d be inclined to re-think our investment in the shares, but it’s not. Rather, as we’ve discussed over the last several months, given the pending merger with Time Warner (TWX), AT&T is a company in transition from being a mobile carrier to a content-led, mobile delivery company. As we’ve seen in the past, consumers will go where the content is (aka Content is King investment theme), and that means AT&T’s content portfolio provides a competitive moat around its mobile business. In many ways, this is what Comcast (CMCSA) established in buying NBC Universal — a content moat around its broadband business… the difference is tied to the rise of smartphones, tablets and other mobile content consumption devices that have consumers chewing content anywhere and everywhere, and not wanting to be tied down to do so.

For that reason, we are not surprised by Comcast launching Xfinity Mobile, nor were we shocked to hear Verizon is “open” to M&A talks with Comcast, Disney (DIS) and CBS (CBS) per CEO Lowell McAdam. In our view, Verizon runs the risk of becoming a delivery pipe only company, and while some may point to the acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo, we’d respond by saying that both companies were in troubled waters and hardly must-have properties.

With AT&T’s earnings, should we see some weakness on the mobile side of the business we’re inclined to let the stock settle and round out the position size as we wait for what is an increasingly likely merger with Time Warner.

 

We’re Also on the Look Out for Datapoints Confirming Our Position in Dycom (DY)

As we listen to the call and dig through the results, we’ll also keep an eye on AT&T’s capital spending plans for 2017 and outer years, given it is Dycom’s (DY) largest customers (another position in our Tematica Select List). As we digest that forecast and layer it on top of Verizon’s expected total capital spending plan of $16.8-$17.5 billion this year, we’ll look to either boost our price target on Dycom or revise our rating given we now have just over 8 percent upside to our $115 price target.

 

Tematica Select List Bottomline on AT&T (T) and Dycom (DY)
  • Our price target on AT&T (T) shares remains $45; should the shares remain under $40 following tonight’s earnings, we’ll look to scale into the position and improve our cost basis.
  • Heading into AT&T’s earnings call, our price target on Dycom (DY) shares remains $115, which offers less than 10 percent upside. This earnings season, we’ll review customer capital spending plans to determine addition upside to that target, but for now given the pronounced move in DY shares, up more than 18 percent in the last month, we’d hold off committing fresh capital at current levels.