Beyond Social Media, Concerns Rise for Sirius and Pandora

Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) was down only 1.25 at $3.60 in morning trading, but this is even lower than when we called our official GAME OVER view on what had been a very long-term outlook. The reality is that Sirius XM may keep rising and growing, but our stance is that the easy money has been made. Actually, the easy money has been made and then some.

The consensus analyst price target is now $4.59 on Sirius XM. But shares keep sliding marginally lower, and the 1.2% drop on Thursday is down to $3.605. We have also seen 43 million shares trade hands, and that slightly exceeds and average day’s trading volume. An official change to take profits only made sense, now that the market cap is more than $22 billion and the 52-week range is $2.55 to $4.18.

Sirius XM shares have broken under their 50-day moving average about 10 days ago, and the 200-day moving average is down at $3.48. If that does not hold, then we would expect more weakness.

Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) was now down more than $5 at $26.17 on the day. It was very surprising to see that the stock market participants gave Pandora a pass the other day when it showed a decline in the monthly active users. This was a first, and now it seems to be garnering more attention.

Pandora has a 52-week trading range of $7.08 to $28.26, and the market cap is about $4.6 billion. Note that the consensus price target on the stock is down at $24.30. Maybe those price targets get raised, maybe not. Trading volume is not excessive at all, with 3.8 million shares having traded versus an average day’s volume of about 11.4 million shares.

Pandora is trading above its 50-day moving average still. That 50-day level is listed as $24.73 as of Thursday. The longer-term 200-day moving average is all the way down at $17.78.

Investors and traders alike have to be considering how to position their portfolios for 2014, now that DJIA and S&P 500 stocks hit all-time highs in the past two weeks. You have seen huge gains here in these stocks, and valuations are high. Taking some money off the table is considered a prudent attitude, even if that is only with a portion of a position.