Pre-Market in the Red

Pre-market futures had been up across the board, but have fallen off the table in recent minutes. We’re now 25 minutes before the opening bell, and we still have yet to see the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data this morning, which was already delayed due to the government shutdown, and was due at 7:30am CT. PCE data is the preferred gauge of economic health for the Federal Reserve, which decides on interest rates mid-next week.

A snapshot of futures shows the Dow -66 points, -0.44%, the S&P 500 -2 points, -0.03%, the Nasdaq -3 points, -0.01% and the small-cap Russell 2000 is -4 points, -0.19%. Bond yields sit at +4.12% on the 10-year T-bill, +3.54% on the 2-year. We expect levels to remain in limbo until PCE numbers come out; if they remain suspended, it’s hard to imagine this would be a boon to Friday trading.

Netflix Streamlines American Entertainment with WBD Acquisition

Before we get to economic updates, the big news of the morning is that Netflix NFLX has won the bid for Warner Brothers Discovery WBD for $27.75 per share. The enterprise value for this new entity — combining Netflix streaming services with CNN, HBO Max, Major League Baseball, DC Studios, the Food Network and HGTV, to name just a few — is currently $82.7 billion, or $72 billion in equity value.

This effectively cuts out suitors like Paramount Skydance PSKY, even though that company reportedly offered $30 per share and a slimmer “breakup fee” — that which Warner Brothers would owe for backing out of the deal — of $5 billion (Netflix’s breakup fee is $5.8 billion). That price was proposed for the entire WBD enterprise, including the Discovery Global TV networks. CEO David Ellison merged Skydance with Paramount — the parent of CBS, Paramount Studios, Comedy Central, BET and more — in August of this year.

The current deal is expected to close within a year and a half, following the proposed spinoff of Discovery Global TV networks in Q3 of 2026. It would also seriously streamline American professional entertainment (YouTube, owned by Alphabet GOOGL, and its independent content creators would remain unaffected) and close ranks on corporate ownership of TV, film and streaming services to a much greater extent. The same would be true if PSKY had won the bid.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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