Commenting on the expected carnage in the financial markets today, The New York Timesnotes that "Now, the risk for the financial firms is that investors will respond by trying to do exactly what they are trying to do - minimize their risk. If enough investors do that and choose to sell, stocks could plummet in markets worldwide, thus increasing the risks rather than easing them."
In reality, it's exactly the opposite. The lower the stock market drops, the lower the risk is. A stock market decline could trigger problems for over-leveraged financial companies dependent upon their credit ratings for their access to capital but, for mom and pop investors, an opportunity to buy stocks at lower prices is good.
In the long run, companies are worth whatever they're worth. Paying 50 cents for an asset is less risky than paying $1, and long-term minded investors should look forward to days like these. There may be other factors that are increasing risk for investors, just as excessive leverage at so many banks has, but lower prices certainly don't qualify as a risk.
The company has a market cap of about $1.8 billion, roughly the price that CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) recently agreed to buy CNET for. Its enterprise value is about $2.85 billion.
Lehman Brothers analyst Craig Huber estimated that the Boston Globe and 15 regional papers could be sold for $575 million after taxes, and valued the company's 17% stake in the Boston Red Sox at $152 million and estimated NYT's portion of its new headquarters at $750 million. About.com, which the Times bought for $410 million three years ago, could fetch a tidy profit if it were sold today.
After hitting a one-year high of $23.85 last July, the stock hit a one-year low of $12.08 last week. NYT opened this morning at $13.05. So far today the stock has hit a low of $12.38 and a high of $13.42. As of 1:15, NYT is trading at $13.00, up $0.16 (1.1%). The chart for NYT looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a bearish 2 Stars (out of 5) Sell rating.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an August bull-put credit spread below the $12.50 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 19.0% return in just four weeks as long as NYT is above $12.50 at August expiration. NYT would have to fall by more than 4.3% in the next few weeks before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
One of the reasons that big newspapers like The New York Times are doing badly is that they often cover stories long after other media. They like to do long analysis pieces that look back on news. The efforts are usually a waste of time.
The paper decided to run a piece called "Wall Street's Fading Crush On G.E." According to the article, "These days, it's hard to find much love on the Street for what was once the bluest of blue chips."
Memo to The New York Times: Thank you for nothing.
The sentiment on Wall Street turned against General Electric (NYSE: GE) months ago. Not only did it miss earnings, but it became increasingly clear that the company was not rushing to dump underperforming assets like its industrial division.
Over the past five years, while GE shares are flat, the stock of another large U.S. conglomerate, United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) are up over 90%.
The Times may not have gone far enough in its analysis. Beyond being out of favor, GE is now a dog of a stock. Without a major change of direction, its share price is not going to recover.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says massive debt at the newspapers means they no longer work as businesses.
Maybe newspapers don't work as businesses. The shocking 10% workforce reduction announced this week by McClatchy (Cramer's Take) (NYSE: MNI), formerly the best-run chain out there, is a reminder that all of these companies have borrowed too much money and don't generate the cash flow to make it work. McClatchy, with an 8% yield, is showing signs of collapsing under its own weight, something that has been exacerbated by Wall of Shame performer Gary Pruitt, a man who is still, amazingly, the CEO.
But all of this was totally predictable. I have never seen an industry attract so many buyers with so much debt and so little equity.
Take Tribune (Cramer's Take). Sam Zell's a smart guy. He let the newspaper employees do the heavy lifting when he bought the Tribune company. That was so smart. He will be out very little if the deal fails. The workers will be out their retirement money. That was a smart deal -- unless you work there -- but I have spoken against that deal so many times I am sick of talking about it.
McClatchy could have weathered this downturn, instead of -- it is a bit unthinkable, but I think it will happen -- defaulting on its debt, if it hadn't been determined to buy a bunch of properties for much more than they are worth. The New York Times (Cramer's Take) (NYSE: NYT) and Gannett (Cramer's Take) (NYSE: GCI) spent a lot of money, but they didn't have to buy back stock. Gannett's 6% yield isn't tempting in the least.
The New York Times reports -- with relief (since the Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin's name had been floated for the job) -- that News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) Wall Street Journal has appointed Robert Thomson, a Murdoch loyalist who formerly edited the Times of London as its managing editor. Murdoch also appointed another loyalist, Leslie Hinton, as its publisher. Thomson and Hinton will also be editor-in-chief and CEO, respectively, of Dow Jones.
I remember back when Murdoch was courting the Bancroft family and people were worried that he would replace the senior people at the Wall Street Journal with his own people. Back then, I posted that he had a track record of doing that when he took over newspapers. I did not expect a different outcome with the Journal.
I was just thinking today that since I skip over most of what the Wall Street Journal publishes in its print edition, it would not be too much of a hardship to cancel my subscription when it comes up for renewal. If Thomson's appointment means less business insight and more propaganda, that decision will be an easier one.
During my career there, there was no question that Matthew Winkler was in charge. My colleagues laughed hysterically when I told them I asked Winkler about his bow ties during my interview with him before I was hired. Bloomberg's editor-in-chief is not known for his sense of humor. Good thing I didn't bring up bow ties -- which he wears every day -- again.
That's why I found the appointment of former Wall Street Journal top editor Norman Pearlstine as Bloomberg's chief content officer so curious. Does this mean that Pearlstine, who was Winkler's boss at the Journal, will supervise him again? What exactly does a chief content officer do that's different than an editor-in-chief? I am not sure of the answers to those questions and neither is the New York Times.
As the Times opines, "the move suggests that Bloomberg, whose fortunes have been buoyed by the selling of its hugely profitable data terminals to brokerage firms and investment banks, plans to expand the journalism side of its business."
Shareholders of Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) must be scratching their heads over the company's $650 million purchase of Newsday from Tribune Co., the latest in a long series of baffling moves by the Dolan family, which controls the New York-based cable company.
The theory -- if you want to call it that -- is that Cablevision would be able to market the newspaper to its customers and that the company would be able to add additional content to its cable news channel. This makes no sense. People have stopped reading newspapers in droves. The only way that they would even consider subscribing is if Cablevision practically gave the newspaper away. Newsday could have struck an alliance with the cable channel to share content without the paper changing hands; these sort of deals happen all of the time.
Maybe advertisers will be more interested in Newsday now that Cablevision will be able to bundle ad space in the paper and its website along with cable commercial time. The problem, though, is that residents in Long Island have a plethora of media choices including the New York Times, New York Daily News and The New York Post. Like the readers, the only way that advertisers that aren't in the newspaper now would consider doing business with Newsday would be with steep discounts.
The perceptive and common sense-rooted Ben Stein, in a business column in The New York Times, has weighed-in on the credit crisis, and for market absolutists, it's an argument they probably don't want to hear.
Stein, like many of us, has pondered how the massively well-paid men and women of Wall Street could create such a catastrophe. How did some of the smartest, talented executives, Stein ruminates, generate such immense losses that "they made banks clam up on lending -- at great risk to the economy?"
Compelling questions
Stein asks: Where were the fail-safe devices? The government watchdogs? The ratings agencies? A speech by Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager David Einhorn at a Grant's Interest Rate Observer event, provided the answers -- the unfortunate truths of the recent housing/credit boom -- which Stein summarized:
It appears that News Corp (NYSE: NWS) will buy the largest newspaper on Long Island, Newsday, from The Tribune Co., increasing pressure on The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) in its home market. News Corp already owns The New York Post. Recent press reports indicate that News Corp is adding more political and international content to The Wall Street Journal to better compete with the Times.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the price for Newsday could be about $580 million, and final details of the purchase or lack of government approval could still kill the deal.
Tribune needs to make the sale to cover debt it took on in its LBO.
The news is especially bad for The New York Times Co. While the Post does not take much advertising from the Times, it does have a circulation of over 600,000 in New York City. Newsday has a daily circulation of about 400,000 in the well-to-do area of Long Island, just east of New York.
The New York Times is already in enough trouble. It posted a loss last quarter, and in March advertising revenue fell about 11%. The firm's stock trades at $20, but many observers believe that it it were not the target of investors who hope to break it up or sell it that the shares price would be much lower.
The value of the company just got undermined again.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has agreed to give activist hedge funds Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners control of seats on its board of directors. The funds own a 19% stake in the company, but that really doesn't matter. The New York Times Co. has a dual-class voting structure, so the Sulzberger family controls 10 directors while the outside shareholders elect 5. So Harbinger and Firebrand control 2 out of 15 directors and the maximum any shareholder could ever dream of electing is 5 out of 15 directors.
In a display of journalistic integrity, the New York Times itself admitted that this move is pretty much irrelevant, saying that "The new arrangement could make for some uncomfortable internal politics, but it is not clear that it will have any effect on the company's direction."
The company says, of course, that it looks forward to working with the new directors, who have pushed for asset sales and more aggressive investment in the internet.
But the problem is that having 2 seats on a 15-member board won't provide any additional leverage, as far as I can tell.
This quixotic activist campaign, however noble, is likely to result in a big fat nothing.
I often spend a little time over at Blogmaverick.com, where Mark Cuban recently sought to give the world of blogging a little of his insightful perspective. It seems that Mr. Cuban finds little to respect in the world of blogging, or at least in the world of slipshod ,cookie-cutter blogging. Though I found Mark's blog entry a trifle difficult to read, which is quite unusual coming from him, I nonetheless agree with most of the body of his post. I especially agree with his assertion that just because a blog is backed by the name of a well-known media organization does not in itself render that blog worthy of special notice.
Mark Cuban wrote, "...newspapers having 'bloggers' is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years." If newspapers are going in a wrong direction by producing blogs, perhaps they need to reinstall the title reporter and drop the title blogger to give a different perspective to the reader. If newspapers are using the term blog simply as a culture hook, then they have it all wrong and they're just selling their reporters short. I believe that I'm in agreement with Mark Cuban when I say that true reporters should be releasing content within some format other than blogs. Blogging is what I do, and I'll be the first to tell you that I'm no reporter. The titles are absolutelynot interchangeable, though they may sometimes be used correctly in tandem.
I love going to the drugstore. Whether it's CVS (NYSE: CVS) or my neighborhood Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), I love the convenience of being able to buy everything I need and everything I don't need in one place. I buy lots of Entenmann's donuts, toothpaste, and school supplies at my local store. And now, I may be able to get a flu shot at the store as well.
The New York Times ran an article today entitled "Should Pharmacists Give Flu Shots?" It seems New York City has been suffering from increasingly bad flu seasons. To combat such breakouts, the city is now attempting to pass a bill allowing pharmacists to give flu and pneumonia shots.
The same article quoted the Department of Health as saying that influenza is "now widespread in New York City, with more than 1,000 flu-related visits to emergency rooms each day. Some 20 percent of the current flu vaccine supply is unused."
I feel my local drugstore is competent to sell me nail clippers and gum, but do we really want these stores dispensing medical services?
Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.
Here are some highlights from this past week's 
Who is the boss of Bloomberg News?
Shareholders of 
It appears that 
I often spend a little time over at 
Analyst sees oil dropping to $50 on global economic slowdown
Lehman screws workers out of severance payments
No Cramer, now is not the time to panic!
