Disney Leads 3 Big-Name Media Stocks Making Notable Moves
Loading the player… Let’s take a look at three media-related stocks making notable moves Tuesday: Walt Disney ( DIS ), Twitter ( TWTR ) and Netflix ( NFLX ). Disney was dropping more than 2% in heavy trade on the stock market today after announcing late Monday that Chief Operating Officer Thomas Staggs will be leaving his current position, effective May 6. He’ll stay on as special advisor to the CEO through the fiscal year, which ends in October. But investors are concerned because Staggs was set to take over the chief executive position from Robert Iger in two years. The gap down came in big volume and sent shares back to their 50-day line, where the stock is now trying to find support. Disney is trying to recover from a steep decline, triggered by ESPN subscriber losses, which put shares nearly 30% below their November peak. The stock is now trading about 20% below its high reached last August. Twitter To Stream NFL Games Twitter won rights to live-stream 10 Thursday Night Football games, which will also be broadcast on network TV channels. Verizon ( VZ ), Yahoo ( YHOO ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) were bidding for the rights too, according to Bloomberg. Facebook ( FB ) also had a bid but pulled it last week. Twitter shares were trading slightly higher in heavy turnover. The stock initially rose and then reversed lower in choppy action. Shares were able to retake the downward-sloping 50-day line in Monday’s session and were trying to find support there Tuesday. Twitter is 67% below its 52-week high. Meanwhile, Facebook rose fractionally intraday, Amazon and Verizon fell less than 1%, and Yahoo lost 1.9%. Netflix Reports Earnings Soon Netflix is due to report its first-quarter results in less than two weeks, on April 18. Analysts expect earnings to drop 64% as costs rise. Revenue is projected to increase by 25%. In May, the price of a Netflix subscription will go up by $2. UBS said in a report Monday that the price hike will translate to a low churn of 3% to 4% over the second and third quarters, as Netflix has strong pricing power. The analyst sees a total of 450,000 net U.S. subscriber additions in Q2. Netflix is rising 0.2% in above-average volume, but it’s still hitting resistance at its 200-day line. Shares lost support at that level around the time of Netflix’s last quarterly report. The stock is trading 21% below its December high. Image provided by Shutterstock .