Media Stocks Fall After Trump Takes White House
U.S. financial markets stabilized Wednesday as investors came to grips with Donald Trump’s upset presidential victory.
After dropping sharply as results trickled in indicating that the Republican standard bearer had a widening path to victory, trading rebounded. The Dow Jones industrial plunged 800 points in futures trading in the wee hours of election night, but climbed back as markets opened. It kicked off down roughly 30 points, before rising slightly in early market trading. The S&P 500 also rebounded after falling 5% in the aftermath of Trump’s triumph. The index was up 0.5% in early morning trading.
Media stocks, however, did not fare as well. Time Warner, which has found itself in Trump’s cross-hairs over its proposed $85 billion sale to AT&T, fell roughly 1.68% to $86.40. AT&T was up slightly. It’s not clear that a deal will move forward given Trump’s promise to kill the union.
Viacom shares fell 2.62% to $36.36, but that decline was primarily due to a weak quarterly earnings report. Other media and entertainment conglomerates did appear to suffer from a drag, be it election-related or otherwise. Twenty First Century Fox fell 1.29% to $26.73, Disney dipped 1.10% to $93.34, CBS was off 1.52% to $56.85, Lionsgate dipped 0.57% to $22.72, Discovery lagged 1.51% at $25.47, and Sony dropped 1.47% to $30.20. Comcast bucked the trend, rising 0.75% to $62.99.
Among technology players, Amazon fell 20.27% to $767.48, while Facebook dropped 1.27% to $122.64. Twitter jumped 2.51% to $18.84.
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