The DOJ Just Turned the Temperature Up on Live Nation Antitrust Rumors: Officially Time to Sell LYV?

Live Nation Entertainment (LYV) has been earning its fair share of negative press over the past few years. Just last month we wrote about the Department of Justice (DOJ) potentially bringing forth an antitrust lawsuit against the company. 

A new report has come out that says this move is imminent and could lead to a breakup of the company. The stock is down more than 5% on the news so far today but fell as low as 9% before the market opened.

All of this stems back to Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on the concert ticketing market. The DOJ gave the two companies “conditional approval” to merge back in 2010. Nearly 15 years later, it seems the regulatory authority has had a change of heart.

The real root of the issue can be traced to Taylor Swift’s “Era” concert tour in 2022 which had fans waiting upwards of 8 hours just for the opportunity to try and purchase a ticket. When they finally had the opportunity, prices were sky-high.

You know what they say – never cross the Swifties. They made enough noise to draw attention to Ticketmaster’s unfair business tactics – which extend beyond monopolistic practices. Complaints lobbied against the entertainment conglomerate include excessively high prices and horrific customer service.

The suit is said to be filed in the Southern District of New York as early as today, which means if you’re reading this, it could already be filed. While there will likely be an array of solutions brought forth to address the issue, one is breaking up the company.

When we first wrote about this suit, LYV sat at just $92/share. It had begun recovering after the noise died down, as DOJ attention may have been drawn towards Boeing. Today, LYV sits at around $96/share. 

So, is it officially time to sell before rumors of this suit become reality? We’ve taken another look at LYV through the VectorVest stock forecasting software and have a few things you need to consider before making your next move either way.

LYV Still Has Very Good Upside Potential and Good Safety With Fair Timing

VectorVest is a proprietary stock rating system that tells you what to buy, when to buy it, and when to sell it. The best part is it does this in three simple ratings to save you time and stress: relative value (RV), relative safety (RS), and relative timing (RT).

Each sits on a scale of 0.00-2.00 with 1.00 being the average, making interpretation quick and easy. Better yet, you’re given a buy, sell, or hold recommendation based on the overall VST rating for any given stock at any given time. Here’s the updated look at LYV:

• Very Good Upside Potential: The RV rating draws a comparison between a stock’s long-term price appreciation potential (forecasted 3 years out), AAA corporate bond rates, and risk. It’s a much better indicator than your standard comparison of price to value alone. LYV has a very good RV rating of 1.28 now. It has slid from the 1.37 figure we reported on last month, though.
• Good Safety: The RS rating is a risk indicator computed from an analysis of the company’s financial consistency & predictability, debt-to-equity ratio, business longevity, sales volume, price volatility, and other factors. LYV has a good RS rating of 1.20, but again - it has fallen slightly from the 1.26 figure we saw in April.
• Fair Timing: The RT rating is based on the direction, dynamics, and magnitude of the stock’s price movement. It’s calculated day over day, week over week, quarter over quarter, and year over year. LYV has an RT rating of 0.93, which is just fair - but a bit better than the poor RT rating of 0.82 that was holding the stock back in April.

All things considered, LYV has a good overall VST rating of 1.13 - but not quite enough to earn the stock a buy today. It’s currently rated a HOLD in the VectorVest system.

That being said, you’re going to want to take a closer look at this situation if you’re currently invested in this stock. Get a free stock analysis at VectorVest today. Transform your trading strategy to win more trades with less work!

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Use VectorVest to analyze any stock free. VectorVest is the only stock analysis tool and portfolio management system that analyzes, ranks and graphs over 18,000 stocks each day for value, safety, and timing and gives a clear buy, sell or hold rating on every stock, every day.

VectorVest advocates buying safe, undervalued stocks, rising in price. LYV is in a tough spot right now where the company and stock itself are doing great - too great perhaps. They’ve earned the attention of the DOJ and it sounds as if an antitrust suit is imminent. That being said, the stock does have very good upside potential, good safety, and fair timing.

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