Continued fears over global market declines drove down the Dow Jones Industrial Average by more than 1,000 points on Monday, with cable stocks caught up in the sell-off.
The Dow plunge was the third straight trading day of heavy losses – the Index lost more than 300 points last Thursday and more than 535 points on Friday. According to reports the Dow was down as much as 6% in early trading Monday, with the S&P 500 Index falling nearly 5%.
In the cable sector, no stock was spared – even SVOD pioneer Netflix opened the session down 15%. On the distribution side, Cablevision Systems led decliners, falling 9.4% ($2.22 each) in early trading to $21.52 per share, followed by Charter Communications (down 7.1%), Time Warner Cable (down 4.3%) and Comcast (down 4%). Cable One, which began trading in July, was unchanged early in the day at $419.75. Satellite stocks also got hit hard, with Dish Network dipping ($$.83 each) 7.9% to $56.12 in early trading Monday.
Programming stocks, which have taken a pounding in the past several days, continued their downward slide Monday. Time Warner Inc. fell 7.9% ($5.74 each) to $66.97 per share, followed by CBS, (down 7.8%); Disney (down 7%); 21st Century Fox (down 5.7%); AMC Networks (down 5.6%); Discovery Communications (down 5.2%); and Viacom (down 4.4%).
