War – especially coupled with a globally sluggish economy – has a contradictory effect on the consumption of entertainment. Disposable incomes plummet curtailing the sales of medium to big ticket items such as cruises and resort vacations. But people – besieged by anxiety and bad news – also wish to be diverted. As the conflict rages, they stay indoors and tune in. Home entertainment booms. But once physical insecurity abates, consumers go out in full force mobbing movie theatres and theme parks, making up for lost time and frayed nerves.
A Solomon Smith Barney report, published in December 2002, concluded that large cap entertainment stocks plunged by 32 percent during the previous skirmish in the Gulf. Stocks of destination travel sites and cruise lines took an even harsher beating, plummeting by 52 percent – this despite the counterintuitive resilience of amusement parks to military and political unrest.
In anticipation of the next round of fighting, these stocks are trading at valuations below even the traumatic tail of 2001. Though quicker than other types of equity to recover postbellum, this holds true only for short and...