Adult entertainment platform OnlyFans appears to be outperforming the remainder of the tech sector. Its variety of creators and subscribers each grew in recent months, in response to the corporate’s CEO Amrapali “Ami” Gan.
“We’re not seeing any slowdown,” Gan told Axios.
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OnlyFans launched in 2016, but its popularity exploded through the pandemic, when celebrities and bored average people alike stuck in quarantine began creating their very own accounts and pushing content.
However the rise of “sexfluencers,” or content creators who give attention to sex and relationships, offers a fun lesson in market dynamics.
The economics of sin
Fictional mobster Tony Soprano once said there have been only two businesses that were recession-proof: adult entertainment and “our thing.” Seems he was right. Recessions push more people into criminal activities, in response to researchers on the LSE Centre for Economic Performance. In addition they boost demand for all types of adult entertainment, including pornography, alcohol, gambling and tobacco.
The phenomenon is so well-understood that investors and researchers actually have a term for it: “sin stocks.” Sin stocks like Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) and British American Tobacco (NYSE:BTI) outperformed the S&P 500 in 2022 by wide margins.
Meanwhile, OnlyFans seems to have avoided much of the pain spreading across the tech sector. The corporate announced just one minor round of layoffs in 2022, while media giants like Twitter and Netflix lost as much as 50% of their workforce.
In truth, OnlyFans is profitable. Since 2020, the platform has delivered at the very least $500 million in net earnings to its owner, Leonid Radvinsky. Gan says the variety of content creators has expanded to three million this 12 months. These “sexfluencers” mix sexual content with traditional online influencer models to generate as much as $900,000 a month.
Unfortunately, retail investors are missing out on this entertaining growth story as OnlyFans stays a personal company. And that’s not more likely to change as Gan says the team is “joyful being privately held.” Nevertheless, there are other ways investors can bet on the adult entertainment sector in 2023.
Read more: 4 easy ways to guard your money against white-hot inflation (without being a stock market genius)
Strip clubs
RCI Hospitality (NASDAQ:RICK) operates over 40 strip clubs across the country. CEO Eric Langan said the corporate was “recession-resistant” and that “business could be very, superb and we’re continuing to run record revenues quarter after quarter.”
Nearly half (45%) of the corporate’s revenue is derived from alcohol sales, which are inclined to be marked up in strip clubs. Put simply, the corporate has pricing power within the midst of a recession and record-high inflation.
Within the fourth quarter of 2022, the corporate reported 29.9% growth in revenue and 71.6% growth in net free money flow. The stock is up 95.8% since July.
Gambling
Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. (NASDAQ: GLPI) is a specialized real estate investment trust that owns 57 casinos across 17 states. These casino properties are occupied by well-known brands equivalent to Penn Entertainment, Caesars Entertainment, Boyd Gaming Corporation, Casino Queen, Bally’s and Cordish Corporations.
All contracts are “triple-net” leases which puts the corporate in a positive position. GLPI stock is up 8.5% over the past 12 months.It trades at 21 times earnings per share and offers a 5.6% dividend yield.
Vice ETF
In case you’d moderately not pick individual sin stocks, there’s a fund that makes it easier to bet on this phenomenon. AdvisorShares Vice ETF (NYSEARCA: VICE) has over $8.5 million in assets under management and holds sin stocks like Heineken, Monarch Casinos and MGP Ingredients.
The stock is up 6.5% over the past six months.
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This text provides information only and shouldn’t be construed as advice. It’s provided without warranty of any kind.