That dubious honor is among newspaper stocks, of course! It goes to Gannett -- assuming current stock trading trends stay pretty much the same while Wall Street counts down to the last trading day of the year, two weeks from today. The year-to-date performance of major newspaper publishers I track, based on Friday's closing prices:- McClatchy: down 71%
- Gannett: down 42%
- New York Times Co.: down 32%
- E.W. Scripps: down 13%
- Belo: down 10%
- News Corp.: down 5%
- Washington Post Co.: up 4%
- Tribune Co.: up 6%
- Dow Jones & Co.: up 58%
And compare that to:
- S&P-500 Index: up 3.5%
- Dow Jones Industrials: up 7%
- Nasdaq Composite: up 9.1%
- Google: up 50%
What do losers and winners have in common? GCI and other losing stocks lack strategies Wall Street believes will work. (Renaming newspapers "Information Centers?" Puh-leeze!) Winners include publishers with more non-newspaper assets (News Corp.'s MySpace, Washington Post's Kaplan test prep service) or plans to sell out (Tribune, Dow Jones).
[Data: Google Finance; photo: New York Stock Exchange traders at work last week, by Brendan McDermid, Reuters]
Gannett stock down? Say it isn't so? How could this happen? Hmmmmmm. Major corporation cuts thousands of jobs systemwide. Oh yeah, we matched employee 401(k)s with company stock purchases. Guess that's a lot of cash the company is no longer putting into its own stock. PANIC! Investors spot initial decline and decide it is time to sell! Sell! Sell! Company sees stock price fall further...must get rid of more liabilities i.e. employees to make company more attractive to investors. Stock price takes another hit...I can't imagine why.
ReplyDeleteSo, THAT's how it works!
ReplyDelete