Please, Don't Give My Roku Stock Away

You're not supposed to be upset when you see your largest holding trading sharply higher, but that's just where I was on Friday afternoon. Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) shares popped 20% on the final market day of the week, most of that coming in the last hour and change.

I ran through the usual suspects that would cause this kind of midday jump. It couldn't be fresh financials. Roku is six weeks away from its next quarterly update, and even if that wasn't the case, it wouldn't push out results during the trading day. A major analyst upgrade wasn't going to create much of a fuss for a widely followed company. An activist investor rattling the cage was unlikely. With Roku's ascending fundamentals and market-thumping stock performance over the past year, a proxy battle couldn't be in the cards.

A marketing or content partnership, like the promising ad deal Roku struck with Amazon last year, can move the stock higher. It just didn't seem likely that it would be that much higher. That left the lone possibility for the spike being Roku's status as a buyout candidate, and, unfortunately, I was right.

Image source: Getty Images.

Thinking outside the box

Bloomberg reported late in Friday's trading day that Roku is exploring the sale of the company. Unnamed sources close to the matter say that discussions have taken place with at least one media company as a potential buyer. Buyout chatter doesn't always move a stock, but when it comes from a historically reliable news source, the market takes it seriously.

Buyout talks usually end in question marks instead of exclamation points and signatures, and Roku isn't desperate. It will need someone to pay a healthy premium to take it out of investors' hands. The shares have soared 87% over the past year. It was crushing the market with a roughly 50% jump before Friday's pop.

Roku is finally becoming the company investors were hoping it would be. It's been consistently profitable over the past year. The 22% year-over-year growth it posted in its latest quarter is its strongest top-line increase in four years. The same company that was struggling with monetization a couple of years ago is coasting now. Roku delivered 27% growth in ad revenue and a 30% uptick for its subscriptions business in the first quarter. With a growing audience of more than 100 million homes on its platform, Roku continues to be larger than the well-financed consumer tech titans in this space.

It only helps Roku's leverage that Evercore ISI's analyst raised its price target on the shares earlier in the day from $160 to $185. Even after Friday's afternoon surge, that analyst price target is a healthy 29% premium to its weekly close.

Teardrops in the bidding war

I've written about Roku's buyout potential for years. Even last summer, in a podcast discussing the next potential Rule Breakers buyout, I went with Roku. I always figured it would be one of the consumer tech giants in this space. More than likely, I figured it would be a tech behemoth that never made a dent in this market. That's you, Microsoft.

Bloomberg's report that Roku's first conversation has been with an unnamed media company is surprising. The appeal to Roku is its agnosticism, a big reason it's been able to keep three of the "Magnificent Seven" companies in this niche far behind in its rearview mirror. If a media company behind one of the leading streaming service stocks gobbles up Roku, it's going to be harder to appeal to the thousands of other streaming apps on its operating system.

Sure, there's an allure to pitching streaming ads to Roku's gargantuan audience. Connected TV is the future, and Roku is in the pole position, with its viewers spending an average of more than four hours a day on the platform.

You can argue that I should be happy if someone is willing to pay 20% to 30% more for Roku stock than where it's trading at today. Even if it takes a few quarters for the deal to close, it should beat the market. I can also just bow out when a potential deal is announced, putting that money to work elsewhere.

You would be right, but I'm still allowed to be selfish. When you put in the time and research into a high-conviction stock, it's not easy to find a replacement. Suffering through plenty of highs and lows with Roku over the years, I hate to see a potential exit strategy now, when the bullish momentum actually feels sustainable.

I won't get in the way of a buyout. I'm not going to storm the wedding and object to the pairing when given the chance. But I will take my premium and move on to the reception hall. So if you see me teary-eyed as the Chicken Dance plays, know that I wasn't the chicken here.

Rick Munarriz has positions in Roku. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Microsoft, and Roku. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.