People walk by the New York Stock Exchange on the morning that the music streaming service Spotify begins trading shares at the NYSE on April 3, 2018 in New York City.Spotify was the biggest contributor to the 13% increase posted by the 21 stocks tracked by the Billboard Global Music Index for the first half of 2023.
The Global Music Index is a float-adjusted index of 21 music stocks. Each company’s market capitalization — the value of outstanding shares — is adjusted to remove the shares of insiders, corporate owners and long-term investors. The remaining market value reflects the shares available to be bought and sold on the open market. The index does not weight stocks to balance the influence of larger and smaller companies.
Strong demand for in-person experiences following the pandemic helped live-music companies recover from share-price losses in 2022. Live Nation shares improved 30.6% to $91.11, and the company had the second-largest gain in adjusted market capitalization. Sphere Entertainment, CEO's gambit to change the live-entertainment business, gained 31.9% after adjusting for the spinoff of MSG Entertainment in April.
Diving into podcasting required large cash outlays for acquisitions, staff and content deals with Joe Rogan, former President Barack and Michelle Obama, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, among others. By March 2022, investors had become impatient for margins to improve, and Spotify's share price dipped to $118.20.