In a miserable week for stock markets worldwide, Spotify continued to fall from an all-time high, K-pop stocks sank and one of the smallest companies on the Billboard Global Music Index posted a double-digit gain.
LiveOne was the biggest gainer of the week, as the music streaming company's shares rose 19.6% to $1.22 after it announced on Wednesday (December 18) that its partnership with Tesla had surpassed 350,000 subscribers. On Friday (December 20), the company also said it had regained compliance with the Nasdaq stock market's minimum bid price requirement.
Only two other music stocks posted gains this week. Sphere Entertainment Co. It rose 2.5% to $38.74, bringing its year-to-date gain to 14.0%. Shares of Sphere Entertainment have lost 12.1% since the company reported its first-quarter financial results on November 12. Reservoir Media also improved 2.3% on the week after jumping 4.8% to $9.26 on Friday.
The Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) fell 3.3 percent to 2,168.69 points, paring a year-over-year gain of 41.4 percent. Just three of the index's 20 stocks ended the week in positive territory. After rising every week from late October to early December, BGMI has lost 4.9% in two straight weekly losses. The latest weekly drop of 3.3% is just the fourth time in 2024 that the index has fallen more than 3% in a calendar week.
Stocks' bad week extended beyond music companies. In the United States, the Nasdaq composite fell 1.8% to 19,572.60 and the S&P 500 fell 2.0% to 5,930.85. In the UK, the FTSE 100 fell 2.6% to 8,084.61 points. South Korea's KOSPI composite fell 3.6 percent to 2,404.15. China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.7 percent to 3,368.07.
Among other music companies, Live Nation was down just 2% to $133.17, despite more analysts raising their price targets on the stock this week. Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $150 from $140 and Benchmark raised it to $160 from $144 and maintained a “buy” rating.
Spotify, the index's most valuable company, fell for a second week in a row. After closing above $500 on Dec. 4, Spotify shares fell 8.3% to close at $460.88 on Friday, down 4.8% for the week. Overall, streaming had more losers than winners this week. Cloud Music fell 7.9% to HKD116.60 ($14.99), its second-biggest drop of the week. SPDB International initiated coverage on Cloud Music this week with a price target of HKD 145 ($18.64) and a buy rating. Elsewhere, Anghami fell 3.7% to $0.79.
Four K-pop stocks fell an average of 5.1% this week, reflecting continued political uncertainty in the South Korean market. SM Entertainment fell 6.3%, JYP Entertainment fell 5.8%, HYBE dropped 4.3% and YG Entertainment sank 3.9%. Year-to-date, the four South Korean companies are down an average of 18.3%, a much bigger shortfall than Universal Music Group (down 5.6% YTD) or Warner Music Group (down 12.9% YTD ).
iHeartMedia, the week's biggest loser, fell 17.5% to $1.89. The radio company's stock traded at $1.00 on July 21st and rose to $2.61 on December 6th. Over the past two weeks, however, its shares have fallen 27.6%.
