Showbiz Stocks 2023: Tech Surges, Big Media Companies Weather Strikes And Streaming Gets A Reboot
30.12.2023 - 00:03
/ deadline.com
Roku was a champ. Lionsgate surged and Netflix jumped. Tech shares went bananas in 2023. Big media stocks had a mixed year of transition dominated by Hollywood strikes with linear television declines and streaming losses.
Paramount fell. Disney and Fox were basically flat on the year. Giants Comcast and Sony, which both have other businesses like broadband or games and music, both had nice runs. Warner Bros Discovery gained a bit. All are pushing for profitability in streaming and progress there will influence how the stocks perform in 2024.
Relatively speaking, 2023 was a real bonanza compared with a truly dismal 2022 when only two – that’s two – media stocks rose for the year: WWE (now part of TKO Group) and Nexstar.
It was a surprisingly good 2023 for stocks overall with the S&P 500 closing up more than 24% for the year. Investors shrugged off high interest rates and inflation, recession fears, threats of a government shutdown, a brief banking crisis and international strife, turning around a year initially expected to be rather glum for markets.
Tech in particular brought the heat, fueled in large part by an AI frenzy. The famous FAANG group of stocks — Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet) — has morphed into The Magnificent Seven. Newly coined this year by an analyst (from the movie), it’s Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Invidia and Tesla. This gang contributed significantly to overall gains. Shares of adjacent tech from Snap to Spotify also rallied.
Exhibitors were split to lower amid angst at 2024’s box office prospects. Broadcast stocks fell, with advertising soft but set for a political tsunami.
And the year year wrapped with a flourish of M&A chatter that hasn’t