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.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) is opening a free classified website, not unlike the services offered by Craigslist. The site, called Kijiji has been available overseas. It will now be set up to operate in 220 cities and all 50 states in the U.S. according to The Wall Street Journal. The auction company is vague about how the property will eventually make money.

The new classified site is not good news for newspaper companies like The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and Journal Register (NYSE: JRC). Shares in these firms have already dropped by as much as half over the last two years as advertising has moved from print to the internet. The availability of auto, real estate, and job classifieds online has been particularly damaging. Most sites like Realtor.com and Monster (NASDAQ: MNST) charge for their services.

The presence of a large, free classified website may pull dollars from some paid online sites, but the companies that cannot afford any more attrition are the ones that still have to support a large editorial staff and printing operations.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Billionaire Sam Zell seemed to like the idea of owning part of the Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB), for a few minutes at least. Other billionaires, like Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, were interested in buying only some of its newspapers. Private equity interests have approached the company about its TV stations.

Now the company is facing the March 31 deadline it set for bids and it appears that no one wants to pony up, at least not at a price much north of where the company currently trades.

That is very bad news for TRB shareholders. Because Wall Street has been hoping for a big bid, Tribune shares are only a few percentage points below where they traded a year ago. Similar companies like The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), McClatchy Company Holding (NYSE:MNI), and Journal Register Co. (NYSE:JRC) are off much more. McClatchy shares declined 35% over the period and stock in Journal Register is down 45%.

All of this means that when the March 31 deadline passes, Tribune shares could begin to correct and it would not be a shock if that correction takes that stock down 20% -- at least if investors look at the performance of similar companies.

The Tribune Company needs to find another billionaire.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Most Noteworthy: On an expected light trading day after Thanksgiving, Palm Harbor (PHHM) and Vicor Corp. (VICR) top today's list of downgrades.

• Palm Harbor Homes, Inc. (NASDAQ:PHHM) and Vicor Corp. (NASDAQ:VICR) were downgraded at Matrix USA due to valuation and the slowing demand for housing, Palm Harbor was downgraded to Hold from Buy and Vicor was downgraded to Sell from Hold.

Other Downgrades:

• Air France-KLM ADS (NYSE:AKH) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup after shares were up in overseas trading after the company confirmed it was in merger talks with Alitalia.
• Journal Register Company (NYSE:JRC) was downgraded at Matrix USA to Sell from Hold due to the soft demand for print advertising and a decrease in circulation.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).