Shares of Live Nation gained 4.0% to $103.77 this week, marking the stock's best closing price since May 2, 2022 and the first time the concert promotion giant has had five consecutive closes above $100 from the end of April and the beginning of May of the same year.
Other music stocks did not fare as well. Most of the 20 companies in the Billboard Global Music Index fell this week, with 13 stocks losing ground and just seven ending the week in positive territory. The index fell 0.1% to 1,697.90, marking the first time it has declined in consecutive weeks since falling for three consecutive weeks in October 2023. Multi-week declines are rare for the index: Since early 2023, it had just two two-week declines, two three-week declines and one four-week decline (in July and August 2023). This week's slight decline brought the index's year-to-date gain to 10.8%.
In a relatively quiet week with no earnings announcements or market-moving news, there was a roughly even mix of gains and losses from the most valuable companies. Universal Music Group rose 2.1% to 27.32 euros ($29.77) while Spotify fell 1.7% to $254.89 and Warner Music Group ( WMG ) fell 2.9% to 32, $94. Elsewhere, German promoter CTS Eventim rose 2.1 percent to 76.70 euros ($83.56) and hit a fresh 52-week high of 77.80 euros ($84.76).
K-pop labels rebounded after a string of weekly declines. HYBE improved 2.3% to 199,000 won ($149.59) and SM Entertainment rose 2.5% to 74,900 won ($56.30). YG Entertainment jumped 6.3% to 43,050 won ($32.36), but is still down 19.6% year-to-date.
French indie music label Believe finished at 15.52 euros ($16.91), still well above the 15.00 euros ($16.34) offer from a consortium seeking to take the company private. WMG has expressed an interest in Believe at €17.00 ($18.52) per share.
Companies with the largest profits and losses are among the least valuable in the index. The week's biggest gainer was Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami, which rose 15.6% to $1.11 and has a market capitalization of just $30.7 million — less than 0.1% of Spotify. Broadcasting giant iHeartMedia and French music streamer Deezer had the index's biggest losses of 10.0% and 10.3%, but iHeartMedia's market capitalization is only $255 million while Deezer's is around €245 million ($267 million). .
The index's four live music stocks were up an average of 0.9% this week, outpacing the 0.4% gain of the seven record and publishing stocks. Five streaming stocks were down less than 0.1% on average. Three radio companies — iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media and SiriusXM — had an average decline of 5.1 percent.
Major US indices also fell slightly this week. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.7% to 15,973.17 points. The S&P 500 fell 0.1% to 5,117.09. In the UK, the FTSE 100 gained 0.9% to 7,727.42 points. South Korea's KOSPI composite was down 0.5 percent at 2,666.84. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.3 percent to 3,054.64.
