New York Times Co. Among S&P 500 Stocks Now Trading Barely Above Book Value

Fitz: Shares of The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) hit an all-time low yesterday, and Friday turned up on a sort of List of Shame compiled by Zachs Investment Research analyst Charles Rotblut. It's seventh on a list of 14 very diverse S&P 500 stocks that are trading at or below book value. To get on the list, a stock had to be ranked either a "strong buy" or a "buy" by Zachs -- in other words a stock that was topping expectations. (Times Co. is rated a buy.)

"A P/B [price-to-book] multiple of 1.0 or lower is an important multiple because it means that investors are not giving the company any credit for its future earnings potential," Rotblut notes.

The Times Co. multiple is slightly above book value at 1.03. It's among diverse company, Rotblut notes, but in a more difficult sector. The list includes companies whose futures should be brighter such as Archer Daniels Midland Company  and Southwest Airlines Co. It also includes companies that are facing very difficult industry conditions such as The New York Times Company  and KB Home.

At mid-day on the first session after announcing it had slashed its quarterly dividend by nearly three-quarters, NYT was trading at a new all-time low of $5.02, down 70 cents, or 12.24%.

Comments

[Stephen Larson]

Price to book may be 1.03 but with goodwill, etc. being vapor, price to tangible book is a better number to look at. Reuter's says it's 15.26 for NYT and 3.35 for the industry sector now.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/ratios?symbol=NYT.N