Superheroes and GOOOOOALS
A MediaBiz report card: Recommending Marvel and Univision was smart. Lionsgate and IMAX? Not so much.
By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The year is half over. And you know what that means. It's time to take a look back at how this column's stock picks have fared.

For the past six months, Media Biz has been a mix of commentary about significant business issues facing the entertainment industry as well as a look at the stocks of some major media companies in the news.

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Shares of Marvel have soared thanks to optimism about 2007 earnings...Spider-Man 3 hits theaters next summer.
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SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD! Private equity firms agreed to buy Spanish-language broadcaster Univision for $36.25 a share, nearly 15 percent higher than where the stock traded when we wrote about it in February.
INVESTOR RESEARCH CENTER INVESTOR RESEARCH CENTER upgrades & downgrades earnings & warnings public offerings INVESTOR RESEARCH CENTER INVESTOR RESEARCH CENTER

I'm proud to say that many of the stock picks in this column have fared well. But I don't have a Pixar-like perfect track record. (Sure, some may quibble that "Cars" didn't live up to expectations but a $156 million take in three weeks is nothing to blow a gasket about.)

Without further ado, here's a closer look at how the Media Biz stock picks have done.

Gigante gain from Univision

Speaking of Pixar, I profiled the company's top rival, DreamWorks Animation late last year. Even though the stock had a bad year in 2005 and had two movies coming out this year, I still predicted that 2006 won't be much better for the company.

So far, that's the case. Even though "Over the Hedge" has been a hit, the stock is down about 5 percent so far this year. Meanwhile Pixar's stock ran up sharply before the company sold out to Disney (Charts) for $7.4 billion.

But my worst call of the year came in my very next column. I totally got it wrong about Live Nation. I gave a poor review of the prospects for the concert promotion spinoff of radio firm Clear Channel back in January. But the company recently reported a strong increase in sales from a year ago and shares are up more than 60 percent.

Fortunately, I scored a GOOOOOOOOOOAL with Univision (Charts), touting the stock of the Spanish language broadcaster just a few days before the company announced it was putting itself up on the shopping block.

On Tuesday, Univision agreed to sell out to a group of private equity firms for $36.25, nearly 15 percent higher than where the stock was trading when I wrote about it.

My next two picks haven't panned out as well. I gave a big thumbs-up to independent film studio Lionsgate back in February. But the stock is down 5 percent despite the success of "Hostel" and "Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion" in theaters, big DVD sales for Best Picture Oscar winner "Crash," and news that financier Carl Icahn had taken a stake in the company.

Looking Marvel-ous

Then there's everybody's favorite domestic diva. I thought that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's stock had finally bottomed out back in February. For a time, it looked like I made the right call; shares surged after a better than expected first-quarter earnings report in April. But the stock has since pulled back and is now trading at about the same price it was at back in February.

But while Madea and Martha made me look bad, I was saved by Marvel (Charts), the comic book publisher which generates big bucks from licensing characters to movie studios. "X-Men: The Last Stand," based on the popular series about mutant superheroes, is the top-grossing film so far this year.

And I predicted that as the year progressed, more investors would start to get excited about the prospects for "Spider-Man 3," which is due out in 2007. Looks like Spidey-mania is already upon us: shares of Marvel are up 22 percent since my column.

My next pick didn't fare as well though. IMAX, the maker of humongous movie screens, has fallen 16 percent since my profile in March. The company has put itself up for sale, but so far there has not been word of any imminent buyout.

It also hasn't helped that two big-budget films that hit IMAX theaters this spring, "V for Vendetta" and "Poseidon," were flops. Both movies were produced by Time Warner (Charts), which also owns CNNMoney.com.

Comcast stock isn't sleepy

My next two cable-themed picks have been a mixed bag. Shares of E.W. Scripps, the newspaper publisher that owns cable channels the Food Network, HGTV and DIY, have been flat since my late March column.

But my praise of cable leader Comcast (Charts) has paid dividends - well, not literally since the stock doesn't pay a dividend. Shares of Comcast are up 10 percent since late April thanks to strong subscriber growth for digital cable and Internet phone services.

However, if Comcast technicians keep getting caught on camera sleeping on the job, I may have to reevaluate my position on this stock.

Finally, even though it's probably way too soon to judge whether stock picks from May have been a success or not, here goes.

Shares of Netflix (Charts) have fallen about 3 percent since I raved about the service but said that the stock looked too pricey.

The two new tracking stocks of John Malone's Liberty Media have headed in opposite directions since I said both might be worth a look last month. Liberty Capital, which I did say was the better value, is up 3 percent, while Liberty Interactive is down 5 percent.

And for what it's worth, my contrarian piece on CBS (Charts), which I dubbed the best bet in the media sector, looks like a winner so far. Shares are up 5 percent since my late May column about the Eye Network's parent company.

Of course, I'll check back in on these picks at the end of the year. Until then, here's hoping that the media sector continues to be an exciting one to watch in the coming months.

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The reporter of this story owns shares of Time Warner through his company's 401(k) plan. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.