Cable stocks took it on the chin on Monday (June 13), as the S&P 500 fell into bear-market territory after investors opted to minimize risk as fears of the possibility of higher interest rates and other money-tightening measures came closer to reality.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 — which includes cable stocks like Charter Communications, Comcast, The Walt Disney Co., Fox Corp. and Paramount Global — dipped 3.9% on June 13, as inflationary fears spooked the markets. Investors appeared worried the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates in a move to slow down the economy after federal data showed consumer prices rose 8.6% year-over-year in May, its quickest increase since 1981.

The decline in the S&P 500 coincided with an 875-point (2.8%) drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 4.7% decline in the NASDAQ Index. The S&P’s Monday falloff brought the benchmark squarely in the bear market realm — down more than 20% since its January high — the first bear market in the U.S. since 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Stocks across the board were hammered, but tech shares were hit particularly hard, with Alphabet, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Apple and Amazon all falling between 4% and 6% for the day.

Netflix, which has been battling declines after it reported its first ever quarterly subscriber loss in Q1, saw its shares dip by 7.2% to $169.69 each. So far this year, Netflix has shed more than 70% of its value — the stock was priced at $602.44 per share on Dec. 31.

Among the biggest losers in the cable programming sector for the day were Paramount Global (down 8.1%), Warner Bros. Discovery (down 5.6%), and Disney. (down 3.7%). Distributors also were hit hard. Altice USA fell 7.5% to $9.25 per share, while Charter fell 4.2%. Cable One dipped 4.1% and Comcast slipped 3.4% for the day.

Streaming companies like Roku (-11.4%), fuboTV (-9.1%) and others were hit hard as well. Roku, a traditionally volatile stock in its own right, had been slipping in the past few days after a nearly 10% boost on June 8 as rumors swirled that Netflix was planning a takeover of the company. Those gains have been erased.

Telcos AT&T (down 4.5%), Verizon Communications (down 2.4%) and T-Mobile US (down 4.5%) fared better than satellite-TV service provider (and wireless newcomer) Dish Network, which fell 8.9%. Dish is in the middle of finishing out the first phase of its wireless buildout — the network needs to reach 20% of its footprint by the end of June — and launched service in Las Vegas earlier last month. ■  

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its largest single-day point loss on Monday, dropping more than 2,000 points as investor concern over a potential crude oil price war and the global impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic gained momentum, with some cable stocks falling by double-digit percentages.

The Dow fell more than 7% at the open on Monday -- prompting a 15-minute halt to trading -- after Saudi Arabia announced a $6 to $8 per barrel discount for crude oil to customers in Asia, Europe and the U.S. That price reduction triggered fears of an all-out price war and sent investors out of stocks and toward the less risky bond market. At one point, the Dow was down more than 2,100 points to 23,706.07, and see-sawed throughout the day, closing at 23,851.02, down 2,013.76 points, or about 7.8%. Other indexes had a rough day as well, with the S&P 500 losing 7.6% and the NASDAQ Index off by 7.3%.

The Dow neared bear market territory Monday, ironically on the 11-year anniversary of the longest bull market in history.  

The Coronavirus also continued to fuel fears, with the number of cases worldwide rising to 111,000 and the death toll at more than 3,800. In the U.S., at last count the virus has infected about 564 people across the country and killed 22.

This is the third major drop in the index in the past month. The index fell 11% between Feb. 14 and Feb. 28, rebounding to a record single day gain on March 2. But as news of more cases and deaths from the coronavirus continued, the Dow fell into a tailspin. Since Feb. 13, the index has lost about 18% of its value.

Cable stocks were battered along with the rest of the market, with Dish Network taking the biggest hit among distributors, falling 14.7% ($4.28 each) to $24.93 per share, followed by Altice USA, down 12.3% ($3.18 each) to $22.65 per share. The rest of the distribution sector had a rough day, with Cable One down 7.7%; Charter Communications down 6.8%; AT&T down 6.3%; and Comcast down 6.2%. If there was a bright spot in the sector, it was Verizon, which managed to fall only 1.8% ($1.04 each) to close at $55.83 per share on Monday.

Programmers also took it on the chin, with Viacom declining 11.1% to $19.17 each, followed by Disney (down 9.5%), Discovery (down 7%), AMC Networks (down 4.8%.) and Fox (down 4.7%).