FB: Buybacks Buoy Stock but Privacy Issues Remain a ProblemFacebook, having been pressured by the European authorities for numerous privacy violations and illegal use of its customers’ personal information, is trying to mitigate the risk of criminal charges as well as monopoly charges. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that FB is concerned with the privacy of its customers. He claims, without any details or explanations, that the platform will be more focused on privacy. He is also making some features specific to certain modes of communication.
All of this will impact FB’s stock price. Currently FB has some buybacks in play this year. The intermediate term bottom formation is not completed, and volume is very low. The Institutional Holdings Percentage has declined and even with the recent gap up, the stock has plenty of work to do to create strong momentum energy to move it up further. The changes FB is making may or may not make its customer base happy. That remains to be seen. It also is likely to impact revenues growth.
Buyback
BA: Speculative at New All-time High with Contrarian Long-term POnly 2 of the DJIA components are currently at new all-time highs: BA and PG. Boeing gapped and ran up on earnings news with a boost from HFTs and buybacks. Currently, the number of shares held by institutions is dropping. Vanguard, Blackrock, Price T Rowe, State Street, Capital World Investors, Northern Trust, all giants of the Buy Side, have lowered held inventory in recent months. The stock is at a speculative price as smaller funds buy heavily and buybacks of up to $14 billion move price up. Whether this will be a good strategy for BA this year remains to be seen. The chart is the Long-term Trend Monthly chart showing the severity of the speculative buying. Also you can see the Cycle chart pattern using the DPO indicator with a failure to trough V shape. Volume shows a steady decline as well. These are contrarian indicators to what price is doing.
KO Earnings: Dark Pool Rotation vs. BuybacksCoca Cola has been in a major buyback mode for its stock in an attempt to move the price up. The buybacks have faced heavier than normal Dark Pool rotation (large lot selling) against the automated buyback orders. Recently the buybacks have increased, creating some interesting anomalies in the large lot indicators as well as in price patterns. Retail traders, who trade this stock heavily, are often fooled by buyback candlestick patterns. Institutional holdings has declined, which is unusual during a buyback mode.
NTAP Earnings: Short-term Bottom, HFT, Pro Traders, BuybacksNetApp is a Data Storage company for Cloud Technology. The Financial Services Industry is reporting a huge increase in Cloud Services usage that is starting in 2019 after a very conservative interest in Cloud Based Storage and services. This could potentially help NTAP complete this short term bottom and begin a new business cycle for the next couple of years. NTAP topped around $88 and declined to a low of about $56 before starting this first attempt at a bottom. HFTs are likely to be targeting this stock tomorrow as it reports its earnings. NTAP technically has stopped just below resistance for a completion of bottom. It is technically in a sideways pattern at this level. BOP shows HFTs were the drivers for the stock to drop in price to the short term bottom low of $56. BOP is not yet showing any quiet accumulation. Some pro traders are in the mix. The stock may also be under buyback mode as well.
Stock buyback failures could herald a crashThe SPBUYUP index has not been shown in a published idea on Tradingview before now (I checked). It is the index which tells how much companies are buying back their own stock to keep the S&P500 afloat.
So if this fails, market 'manipulations' of the S&P500 could fail. Of course, this not the only thing that influences the S&P500 but it is a significant marker of influence or lack of it.