The double-digit rally in Gannett's stock comes as the S&P-500 index is up just 6%. Is this being driven by speculators covering their short positions because of fears GCI's stock has hit bottom, and is now heading up? Or is something else afoot?
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Why do you have to editorialize your post be ending with "or is something afoot?" How about just the facts? Can't something just be good? Can't you be happy for us Gannett employees that need a lift?
ReplyDeletePer StockScouter:
ReplyDeleteShares are being heavily sold by financial institutions. Neutral for a large company like GCI
An Anonymous poster offered this link.
http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/39899.htm
Financial institutions are selling off, while Gannett Corp. Execs are buying them up.
Is something afoot? Indeed it is.
Read it for yourself.
1:35 pm: A short-squeeze is anything but good. In any case, this is called writing provocatively.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with him editorializing? Isn't that the whole point of this blog? Get a clue, Anonymous 5/5/09 1:35pm
ReplyDeleteClearly those in the know using "inside" information....how else can you explain it? I thought buying stocks with inside information was illegal?
ReplyDeleteSo....
ReplyDeleteWhat of the rumor of Freedom Communications making a play for GCI?
Maybe this is just the market recognising that Gannett is a great company which is dramatically undervalued. Because that's exactly what it is!
ReplyDeleteBlogs are filled with editorializing. So what? Those who are so high and mighty should take a look at their own newspapers, including Gannett's flagship, which aren't much better at weeding out opinions. The difference is, newspapers are suppose to be objective, blogs aren't.
ReplyDeleteI would really like to know what is driving up Gannett stock. It just doesn't seem logical with all the debt and other problems this company has, many of which GCI brought on itself with so many unnecessary layoffs (and the really bad feelings they created) and other ridiculous cutbacks, while at the same time spending lavishly on things/people that don't improve the product.
This company is a mess. Just don't understand these stock gains. I am not complaining, but something doesn't feel right about it. Maybe the outside world doesn't really feel what is happening here.
Maybe this is just the market recognising that Gannett is a great company which is dramatically undervalued. Because that's exactly what it is!
ReplyDelete5/05/2009 2:37 PM
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Can't you READ? "The Market" is selling heavily. They buyers are Gannett goonies.
Wow, stocks up. Quick, call a meeting of the compensation committee so that they can raise Craig and Gracias bonus before it retreats.
ReplyDeleteIt's called putting the worst possible light on good news, which is the purpose of Jimbo's blog. That and a home for nutbag conspiracy theorists. Always enjoy stopping by to watch the car accidents.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from ya Craig....
ReplyDeleteit may be short-covering that's driving the stock gains, but the stock was upgraded today by Market Edge (dont know how influential this operation is). And Bernake's "the economy seems to be stabilizing" comments may also be giving the stock a lift on the hope that advertisers return.. Let's see how long it lasts. ANY gains have to be positive.
ReplyDeleteso do you sell the stock that's the gannett match for the 401K contribution or hold it for a while?
ReplyDeleteWhile I would love to see GCI go up due to fundamentals, I don't see this as recognition that the stock is undervalued and is therefore a buy.
ReplyDeletePractically everything in this market is undervalued on a historical basis -- including companies that have a far brighter future than GCI. Look at Apple: It's up $54 from its 52-week low, but it's still $60 below its 52-week high. Now that's undervalued -- and I happen to think Apple's future is a bit brighter than GCI's.
Remember when Jim promised he would post his performance evaluations? We have yet to see them.
ReplyDeleteGannett is, or once it was, a great media conglomerate.
ReplyDeleteThen, a myopic Board of Directors placed a man, a great, very likeable man, with a brilliant broadcasting career, but a man that had not spent a minute of his professional life inside a newspaper, in charge of a company with 1.300 or so newspapers at the worst time in the history for print newspapers.
It is like putting at the helm of Titanic a great producer of wheat from Indiana, whom had never been at sea before. He could sink the ship even without icebergs.
The choice was spelling "disaster" when he decided, together with a cunning CFO and a complacent Board, to buy back stocks instead of using the cash to pay off the debt. At the end he's got drawers full of devalued stocks, the cash is gone and the debt is still mostly there. If he had used the money to pay off the debt instead, the stocks and the company would not be now where they are.
But again, don't forget the Titanic part. The ship started to take water in, sinking was a possibility. So what does he do? Does he patch the hole in the hull? No, he chooses instead the easy path. To make the ship lighter, he starts throwing people overboard.
Tens of thousands of them.
Families are disrupted, the main income is suddenly gone and this is not a textile mill. Employees are journalists, broadcasters, graphic artists. Creative, highly specialized, professional people that cannot just find another job in 30 minutes, specially in this economy.
Does he or the highly overpaid, highly cunning, overly glorified, bean counter get themselves concerned with the human tragedies that they have been creating for thousands of decent people, whom, by the way, had no fault of their own?
Of course not, each of the two is still bringing millions at home every year (of course, as long as it lasts).
However, what he and she do not understand, is that there is more water in the ocean than people on the boat, so the tactic cannot prove to be successful at the end.
So, what now? They still ignore the hole in the hull (by now, you understand I am talking about the downward trend in newspapers paid subscriptions and single copy sales).
What do they do instead? They concoct a new plan, which involves shutting down revenue producing assets, threatening the shutting off of more, and in the mean time tell everybody that, guess what, every three months you will not receive one two weeks paycheck.
Great! The morale was already low, now, not only there is no hope for the future, there is no money left in the monthly budget to take the kids out for pizza, once in a while, or to take the wife/husband for a night on the town, once in a blue moon. If the kids grow out of their shoes they can just go barefoot. They heard it is fashionable in the French Riviera. (A bit less in NoVa where the asphalt is either too cold or too hot, but never mind that).
That is precisely what you need to get the creative juice flowing in those tens of thousands of wonderful, highly professional people that made Gannett, Gannett.
Keep slapping them in the face until your hand hurts, they don't deserve it, but guess what, you can, so keep going.
Like in the Ben Hur movie, the rule is "row, slaves, and live, to serve the Emperor".
Should I add more?
This Craig's list is short, sad and discouraging. It should really cease to exist.
It offers no hope because unfortunately the truth is that good ole' Craig knows about newspapers as much as a beauty queen does(and his wife probably bakes cookies that tastes like wingnuts, to quote Al Pacino).
Maybe Craig should consider going back to Texas. George Bush already did. They could sit together in one of their mansions and exchange war stories.
After dinner they could even go up on the roof and play the Lyre, like Nero, and enjoy watching Rome burn.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is just the market recognising that Gannett is a great company which is dramatically undervalued. Because that's exactly what it is!
5/05/2009 2:37 PM
LOL!!!!!! Dream on!!!!!!!!
But again, don't forget the Titanic part. The ship started to take water in, sinking was a possibility. So what does he do? Does he patch the hole in the hull? No, he chooses instead the easy path. To make the ship lighter, he starts throwing people overboard.
ReplyDeleteTens of thousands of them.
Keep slapping them in the face until your hand hurts, they don't deserve it, but guess what, you can, so keep going.
Like in the Ben Hur movie, the rule is "row, slaves, and live, to serve the Emperor".
Maybe Craig should consider going back to Texas. George Bush already did. They could sit together in one of their mansions and exchange war stories.
After dinner they could even go up on the roof and play the Lyre, like Nero, and enjoy watching Rome burn.
5/06/2009 1:08 PM
Gosh, you made my day! What an insightful thought about current management and the board. I could not have said it any better.