With less than 30 minutes remaining in Monday’s Nasdaq trading session, Sinclair Broadcast Group shares were up 23 cents to $17.42. That’s good news for investors who stuck with SBGI through a $14.53 close on December 28 — its lowest since February 2013.
Even so, The Motley Fool has issued a warning to investors. SBGI is a stock “you might want to consider steering clear of this week.”
What does Rick Munarriz of The Motley Fool have against Sinclair?
He’s blunt and gets right to the point. “It’s been nearly four years since Sinclair spent nearly $10 billion to acquire the Bally Sports collection of regional sports networks. That’s so far proved to be a bad bet. Cord-cutting continues to weigh on the once juicy carriage rights it would collect, and most live TV streaming services have dumped Sinclair’s offerings from their plans.”
Ouch. While Munarriz shares there is more to Sinclair than just its regional sports networks, including some 185 local TV stations across the country and various marketing and technology platforms, he can’t get past the RSN debacle.
“All of Sinclair is commanding an enterprise value of just above $5 billion right now,” he says, adding that Sinclair is in an industry “that seems to be going in the wrong direction.”
