Media Stocks Finish Week With Average 4% Declines

• by Wayne Friedman , December 7, 2018

It's been a rough time for TV-video and media tech stocks and publicly traded companies, which are down around 4% for the week -- all due to concerns over a U.S. economic slowdown.

The Dow Jones Media Index lost 3.9% to 874.64. Dow Jones U.S Broadcasting and Entertainment Index also dipped 3.9% to 1,304.54.

Big media and technology stocks highlighted the suffering: Netflix was down 7% to $265.14, while Google (Alphabet) lost 5.7% to $1,046.58; Apple gave back 5.7% to $168.49; Amazon dropped 3.6% to $1,629.13; and Facebook was down 2.3% to $137.42.

Among traditional media companies: Comcast dropped 4.1% to $37.41. Walt Disney was down 3% to $111.98; Charter lost 4.1% to $315.70; CBS fell 5.7% to $51.10; Viacom declined 3.1% to $29.91; and Dish Network was off 2.5% to $31.93.

Of the better-performing bigger TV-media content providers, 21st Century Fox slipped only 0.4% to $49.26.

Among local TV station groups, Sinclair Broadcast Group was down 2.5% to $30.66, and Tegna sank 4.5% to $12.69.

Two local TV station groups stocks gained in the week: Tribune Media was 11.8% higher to $44.99 and Nexstar Media Group was up 3.2% to $85.30. Nexstar announced a deal to buy Tribune Media during the week.

OTT platform/set-top-box company Roku was another big loser, down 7% to $37.92, while Discovery Inc. was 5.8% lower to $28.93.

Nielsen Holdings lost 2.7% to $26.43, and AMC Networks was down 3% to $58.06.