After The Bell Tuesday: Sector Takes A Breather, But Gannett Gets Thumbs Up

Fitz: Newspaper stocks ended trading mixed on Tuesday with generally low volume and modest price swings.

Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI) ticked up 7 cents, or 0.87%, to $8.07 perhaps on the strength of a sorta bullish RealMoney posting by David Sterman, who contends that in the case of GCI and The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) “obituaries have been prematurely written.” Sterman sees real upside for Gannett as it sticks to its knitting by drawing down debt, staying with its broadcast properties and increasing its online investments thanks to the weakness of its partners in some of those ventures, The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI) and privately held Tribune Co.

One RealMoney recommendation to Gannett: Cut the dividend, which pays an “absurd” 20% yield, and save $180 million a year.

Dips were relatively modest on the day. MNI ended at $1.17, down 4 cents, or 3.36%. Media General Inc. (NYSE: MEG) dropped 17 cents, or 5.94% to $2.69. And Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) shaved a penny of its share price to 42 cents. There was no news on the three, though MNI and MEG announced their schedule for Q4 earnings reports, perhaps reminding investors of bad news to come.

The biggest percentage gainer on the day came in the Pink Sheets where exactly 1,000 shares of American Community Newspapers (OTC: ACNI.PK) traded. The stock price increased $0.0029 to $0.0050 – good enough for a 138.1% gain according to Yahoo Finance’s math. Ah, the jobs of sub-sub-sub penny stocks.