HBO had its biggest first season, new series debut with the release of House of the Dragon — drawing in nearly 10M viewers. Still, the debut was short of the final season premiere of Game of Thrones — which brought in 17.9M viewers.

House Warner: It’s a much-needed victory for HBO’s parent company Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) — who’s been struggling with a tough streaming market.

WBD

has lost nearly half its value this year, and the $53B in-debt company has vowed to ruthlessly cut $3B in costs:

• Canceling the near-complete Batgirl movie in an unprecedented move and taking down content from HBO Max.
• Laying off 14% of HBO’s employees this month and axing CNN+ a month after launch earlier this year.

The launch also had issues with 3,700+ reports of HBO Max being down during the premiere of “House of the Dragon.”

Investors: While one successful release is unlikely to bringWBD

back, a ruthless CEO may just be whatWBD

needs to unlock value for investors.

• In its previous earnings report, its CEO said WBD would have paid down $6B in debt by the end of August.
• The company still needs to prove it can execute, but successfully cutting costs and bringing down debt can be good for investors.

It might be too soon to write off WBD, but for investors, a better question is, what will perform better at the market bottom?

Bring it back: These four sectors performed the best the year after the 2008 recession.