Tuesday, February 02, 2010

There's No Business Like Show Business: Top Yielding Entertainment Stocks


The news is out. James Cameron's Avatar, the highest grossing film ever, has been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, with the Academy Awards being announced on Disney's (DIS) ABC network on March 7. The film was also nominated for eight other Oscars. I guess that should be expected for a movie that has grossed $594.5 million in the last month and a half.

But it is not just Avatar. Edge of Darkness, with Mel Gibson, brought in over $17 million just last weekend, with When in Rome grossing above $12 million. Sherlock Holmes (which I highly recommend, by the way), starring Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel McAdams, was around $12.5 million for the weekend.

With all this money rolling in, the revenues must be going somewhere. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has developed a free spreadsheet database of all the high yielding entertainment stocks that pay dividends over 3%. Several of these companies are beneficiaries of these movies.

Sherlock Holmes and Edge of Darkness are distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (TWX). Time Warner has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 13 and a yield of 2.7%.

Regal Entertainment Group (RGC) operates a chain of theaters throughout the United States in mid-sized metropolitan markets and the suburbs. The company has a forward PE ratio of 18, and pays a very nice dividend of 4.9%.

Another motion picture chain that has theaters in North and South America is Cinemark Holdings Inc. (CNK), with a forward PE of 16, and an extremely generous yield of 5.1%.

There are actually 18 entertainment stocks with yields above 3%, five of which yield more than 7%, all of which can be found at wsnn.com. Some of the stocks on the list are senior notes, which trade like preferred stocks.

Author owns DIS and TWX.

By Stockerblog.com

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