Donald J. Trump’s stunning upset win over Hillary Clinton for the presidency has had little effect on the stock market so far, with media stocks dipping between 1% and 2% in early trading and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising slightly as investors and pundits try to digest the events of the past several hours.
Some pundits had expected the uncertainty that would envelop a Trump win would send the markets into a tailspin. That, at least early on, didn’t come, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down just 5.8 points to 18,326.92 at around 10:20 a.m.
Trump was a critic of big media during the campaign – he has said he would block the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger and would never have approved Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal. Time Warner was the biggest loser in the media space in early trading Wednesday, down 1.7% ($1.48 each) to $86.39 per share. AT&T stock rose 0.5% (17 cents each) to $37.16 per share.
The rest of the sector was a mix. Comcast and Charter each climbed slightly, with Comcast gaining 1.1% (66 cents) to $63.18 per share and Charter rising 1% ($2.19) to $264.45 per share.
Dish Network, which posted another quarter of subscriber losses, rose 1% ($47 cents) to $57.15 per share, possibly on optimism that a blocked AT&T-Time Warner deal would make a Dish-AT&T combination more likely.
On the programming side, content stocks were all down between 1% and 2% in early trading, with Viacom shedding 2.41 (78 cents) to $36.57 per share, Disney down 1.3% ($1.18) to $93.20 and 21st Century Fox down 1.7% (47 cents) to $26.62 per share.
