Big Entertainment Stocks Open Virtually Unchanged After Hurricane Sandy Market Closures

Big entertainment stocks opened virtually unchanged on Wednesday as U.S. stock markets resumed operations after being closed for two days due to Hurricane Sandy.

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The broader markets opened higher, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 0.6 percent, and the broad-based Standard & Poor's 500 index up 0.4 percent,

At around 9:45am ET, Time Warner's stock was unchanged, while News Corp.'s stock was up 0.9 percent at $24.01, and Sony was up 0.7 percent at $11.93. Shares of CBS Corp. were down 0.2 percent at $32.81 at the open, but a few minutes later were in slightly positive territory. Viacom's stock was down 0.4 percent at $52.33.

The stock of Walt Disney at the same time was up a minimal 0.1 percent at $50.13 after a slew of analysts had commented on the entertainment giant's $4.05 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm and its Star Wars franchise. Many said the price tag was high, which would be a drag on earnings in 2013 and 2014, but they predicted the deal would work out well for Disney longer-term.

The two-day closure was the New York Stock Exchange's first weather-related closure in 27 years.

Netflix's stock took more of a hit in early Wednesday trading after the company disclosed in a regulatory filing that its content costs for international service launches were up more than originally reported in a filing due to a typo that repeated a figure of 14 percent instead of 348 percent. Netflix's stock was down 3.7 percent at $67.01 as of 9:40am ET.

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai