A look at the market through 52-week lows

Posted Oct 28th 2007 3:10PM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: AT and T (T), New York Times'A' (NYT), Comcast Cl'A' (CMCSA), Gannett Co (GCI), Level 3 Communications (LVLT), Time Warner Cable (TWC)

A collection of widely traded stocks making 52-week lows often shows sentiment for which industries and investing themes are out of favor.

Some of last week's lows:

Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ: LVLT): The company has one of the largest data and voice networks in the country. But pricing pressure on bandwidth costs and trouble integrating acquisitions did a tremendous amount of damage to the shares when the firm announced third quarter numbers. The stock traded as low as $2.90, down from a 52-week high of $6.80. But, LVLT's real sin is the amount of debt it carries -- almost $7.4 billion. The current market hates balance sheets that indicate too much borrowing.

Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA): Cable was riding high when it looked like its "triple play" of voice, broadband, and TV was pulling customers away from the telecom companies. But the shoe moved to the other foot quickly. Comcast hit a multi-year high in January as its VoIP offering was adding hundreds of thousands of new customers. But, in its third quarter, subscription growth slowed. AT&T (NYSE: T) announced that subscriptions for its new TV product, E-Universe, was getting good customer adoption. And, those clients are almost certainly coming from cable. Comcast fell to $20.82. Other large cable companies like Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) also hit lows on similar concerns.

Gannett Inc. (NYSE: GCI): Despite positive earnings news from The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), Wall Street refuses to believe that the large newspaper chains can find any solutions to halt a relentless drop in print advertising. If the internet continues to pull away marketing dollars, some of the debt-laden papers could have real trouble next year, so McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) and Journal Register (NYSE: JRC) also hit multi-year lows.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Tags: 52-week lows, CMCSA, Comcast, Gannett, GCI, Journal Register, JournalRegister, JRC, Level 3, LVLT, McClathcy, MNI, New York Times, NYT, Time Warner Cable, TWC