Live Nation stock upgraded to 'Overweight' by Morgan Stanley
Live Nation Entertainment (LYV) shares pop off in Thursday's pre-market trading session following a Morgan Stanley upgrade from "Equal-Weight" to "Overweight." Yahoo Finance Live monitors the concert operator's stock performance amid booming concert ticket sales in 2023 and US lawmaker inquiries into ticket pricing.
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Video Transcript
BRAD SMITH: Shares of Live Nation. We've been tracking them jump and jumping as Destiny's Child would say, they once were on those stages. Beyonce still out there.
Anyway, Morgan Stanley upgraded the events promoter and venue operator to overweight from equal weight. Morgan Stanley, slapping $110 price target on shares of LYV up from $100. Now, the analyst behind the call believes the fundamentals behind music and live events are some of the healthiest the entertainment sector has seen as we head into the new year. I mean, this comes off a very strong experiences economy that we've seen over the course of 2023.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, they're very confident just in terms of some of that momentum, confident in their future growth that we could see here from Live Nation. You're looking at stock that's risen about 8% in the last week alone. So, we are seeing some of this momentum to the upside in recent weeks. It has been a pretty volatile several months here for the company.
We know that they have been facing a tons of pressure, especially from lawmakers just in terms of ticket pricing, what exactly played out for the pricing when it comes to Taylor Swift. And Bruce Springsteen concert recently, just a few weeks ago, there was a Senate subcommittee that did issue a subpoena here for Live Nation and Ticketmaster for records of the company's ticket pricing and fees. The list goes on.
But, at least, for right now, Morgan Stanley, looking back or looking past that, I should say, upgrading the stock to overweight from equal weight, saying that they have increased confidence in future growth of live events, they also just have increased conviction in that durable long term play here for the company going forward. $110 price target. That's up from $100 a share.
