Dow Roars Back
Market Surges 936 Points; Cable Soars
By Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News, 10/13/2008 2:58:00 PM
After the most brutal week in Wall Street history—when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 1,900 points—the stock market made big gains Monday and took cable along for the ride.
After weathering the worst week in 112 years, the Dow roared back on Monday gaining more than 936 points in its biggest single-day point gain ever, closing at 9,387.61 points.
Cable stocks, battered along with the rest of the market last week, began the long climb back with Cablevision (up $2.89, or 18.6%, to $18.42); Time Warner Cable (up $2.37, or 12.1%, to $21.94) leading the way. All of the operator stocks showed increases on Monday, with Comcast up $1.61 per share (10.5%) to $16.97; Charter Communications up 6 cents (14.6%) to 47 cents each and Mediacom Communications up 79 cents (21.5%) to $4.47 per share. While the stocks still have a way to go—the sector is down about 17% for the year despite today’s gain—it was an encouraging lift.
Programming stocks, hit hard by the economic downturn and fears that the advertising slum will worsen, preformed well on Monday. News Corp., down more than 50% from Jan. 2 to Oct, 11, rose 20.3% ($1.72 each) to $10.18 per share on Monday. The Walt Disney Co. gained 16% ($3.68 each) to $26.72, Viacom 23.2% or $3.96 each to $21.06; Discovery Communications gained $1.93 per share (17.4%) to $13.05 each; WWE surged $1.47 per share (11%) to $14.82 each and Scripps Networks Interactive rose $3.01 each (11.1%) to $30.07 per share.
