Posts Tagged ‘nyt’

  • NYT Profits Plunge 85%
    , October 25th, 2012 at 10:35 am

    Yesterday I noted that the put-call ratio on the stock of the New York Times ($NYT) had soared 30-fold in two days.

    It turns out, they were on to something.

    Today the NYT reported that its earnings plunged 85%. The stock has been down as much as 15% today.

    Profit for the quarter sank to $2.28 million, or two cents a share, from $15.7 million, or 10 cents, a year earlier.

    The loss from continuing operations was two cents a share, compared with earnings of five cents a share from continuing operations year ago. Excluding severance and other items, the loss from continuing operations was one cent in the most recent quarter.

    Revenue declined 0.6% to $449 million, and operating margin narrowed to 1.9% from 4.7%

    Advertising revenue fell 8.9% on a 11% decline in print ad sales. Digital advertising revenue decreased 2.2%.

    Circulation revenue rose 7.4%. Paid digital subscriptions across the company were roughly 592,000, an 11% increase from the second quarter.

    Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently forecast earnings of eight cents on revenue of $479 million.

  • Is Something Up at the New York Times?
    , October 24th, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Somebody somewhere somehow knows something. Or at least they think they do. The put-call ratio for the New York Times‘ ($NYT) stock has soared 30-fold in the last 48 hours:

    Two New York Times Co. (NYT) option trades pushed bearish wagers to the highest level ever after the publisher of the third-biggest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation rallied to a 20-month peak.

    The ratio of outstanding puts to sell the stock versus calls increased almost 30-fold in two days to 4.1-to-1 on Oct. 22, an all-time high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A block of 8,500 January $10 puts changed hands that day after 10,000 traded at the end of last week, the data show. Times Co.’s shares climbed 37 percent this year through yesterday and touched its highest price since February 2011 last week.

    “The stock has had a nice run which you may want to hedge,” Boniface “Buzz” Zaino, a money manager at Royce & Associates LLC in New York, said yesterday via phone. His firm manages about $36 billion including shares of the publisher. “You could get a near-term bearish case based on concerns about the economy for the next six months and what’s going to happen to advertising dollars.”

    The stock has had an impressive run since May. At one point, NYT was at $5.88 on May 4th. Last week, the shares got as high as $11.07. The stock certainly appears to be over-priced here. Earnings are due out tomorrow.

  • 25 Years of No Gains
    , July 22nd, 2011 at 10:48 am

    The New York Times’ ($NYT) closing price on July 21, 1986: $14.83

    The New York Times’ closing price on July 21, 2011: $9.14

    Ten years ago, the stock was at $46. The company suspended its dividend in 2008.

    NYT just reported earnings of 14 cents per share which was five cents more than expectations. Quarterly revenues dropped by 2.2%. Print advertising fell by 6.4%. The shares are down below $9 in today’s trading.