• by Wayne Friedman , January 8, 2019

On Monday, Roku announced its active streaming accounts were up 40%, and its stock rose 25%. On Tuesday, the company gave back half of that gain.

Roku’s stock price dropped 9% in early Tuesday trading to $38.30.

The stock decline was due to news around Samsung's deal with Apple. New Samsung TV users can access iTunes and other Apple content.

This caused Citron Research to issue a tweet downgrading the stock: “We initially went long [on Roku] at $35. However, have to recognize when the story has changed. Apple teaming up with Samsung. Roku CEO selling last week, and short interest at lows. Risk/reward no longer there. Expect big retracement. Roku stock is uninvestable now.”

The connected TV platform said in its fourth quarter 2018 report that active accounts were up 40%, topping 27 million subscribers. Total streaming hours in the fourth quarter grew 70% to an estimated 7.3 billion hours.

For all of 2018, total 2018 streaming hours were about 24 billion — up about 61% from 2017.

Yesterday, Roku stock climbed 25% on the news of its higher streaming data. In September, the stock reached a high of $77.57.