Media Stocks Being Decimated; Are Any Buys?

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:59:04 +0000

Nope. Here is why: media companies should be buying up companies but they won’t, they won’t learn from history. Some of the best buys took place during downturns (Time Warner buying Advertising.com, for example, in 2003, for $430M). While some of these companies have cash on hand, their stock is not too rich, meaning that stock can’t really be used as currency. And nowadays, no one wants to part with cash.

Marketwatch has a rundown of the carnage:

- Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company, hit a five-year low of $9.94 before closing at $10.09, down 6.4%.

- News Corp., dropped nearly 10% to close at its lowest price in more than five years at $9.01.

- Viacom Inc. gave up 5.7% to close at a five-year bottom of $20.08.

- CBS Corp. fell as low as $10.13, as the shares hovered at their worst level in 10 years. The stock lost 11.2% on the session.

- Sony fell to a new 12-month low of $23.

- NBC majority parent General Electric Co. hit a fresh one-year low of $19.

In the cable sector,

- Cablevision Systems Corp. fell 2.8% to close at $16.88 after reaching its 52-week low of $16.14.

- Comcast Corp. fell to a one-year bottom of $16.08, closing at $16.31.

Among newspaper stocks:

- New York Times Co. fell 8.2% to close at $12.17;

- Gannett Co. gave up 8.5% to $13.37,

- Media General Inc. fell 18% to $8.91.

The idea in investing is buy low, sell high. Are there really any of these media stocks worth buying, though?

HipMojo.com

Media Stocks Being Decimated; Are Any Buys?