The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its biggest drop in three months on Thursday (274 points) as a terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain that killed 13 people and disappointing earnings affected all sectors of the stock market.
The Dow closed at 21,750.73 on Thursday, down 274.14 points. The decline overshadowed earlier rallies that have sent the market to several records this year and even surpassed last week’s sell-off when tensions around a possible nuclear conflict with North Korea sent the index down 144 points on Aug. 10.
Poor quarterly earnings from big retailers like Wal-Mart and tech companies like Cisco also helped fuel the Aug. 17 declines.
Cable stocks fell along with the rest of the market, but the declines for the most part weren’t too dramatic. Among distributors, international cable operator Liberty Global dipped the most, 3.25% ($1.12 each) to $33.39 per share; followed by Comcast, down 2.35% (97 cents) to $40.27; Charter Communications, down 1.85% ($7.42) to $393.36; Cable One, down 1.1% ($8.40) to $731.55 per share; and Altice USA, down 0.69% (21 cents) to $31.34 each.
On the programming side, QVC Inc. was down 2.9% (65 cents) to $21.15; 21st Century Fox declined 2.3% (64 cents) to $27.35; Viacom fell 2.1% (61 cents) to $29.21; Discovery Communications dipped 1.6% (36 cents) to $22.24; CBS was down 1.3% to $65.66 and The Walt Disney Co. dipped 0.8% (79 cents) to $101.41 per share.
In the telco and satellite TV sectors, AT&T fell 1.7% (63 cents) to $37.60 per share, while Verizon Communications dipped 1% (48 cents) to $47.94 each. Dish Network stock closed at $56.94 per share, down 2.6%, or $1.52 each.
