Posted on 04/03/2006 1:38:56 PM PDT by abb
NEW YORK (AP) - Shares in newsprint makers Bowater Inc. and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. fell Monday after Bank of America cut the stocks to "Sell," advising investors to take profits after recent gains.
Analyst George Staphos also cautioned that he expects growth in newsprint demand to slow within the next 12 months, as the industry's boom cycle starts to weaken.
"We view 2006 as a peak pricing year, and 2006/2007 as the peak in profitability," he said, adding, "This would argue that now is the right time to sell positions."
Staphos said investors should be ready to increase their holdings if the price of newsprint were to rise again or there was a reduction in the sector's production capacity.
The analysis comes after years of declining circulation at major North American newspapers, which have responded by cutting the size of their publications to help trim printing costs. Starting Tuesday, The New York Times Co. will reduce its daily publication of stock tables to two pages from six.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.moneycentral.msn.com ...
Thanks for posting this.
One of the best measurements of failure or success of the fishwraps is the amount of newsprint they waste er use each year.
Due to falling paid circulation numbers and ad $'s the pages of most fish wraps in the last two years have gotten smaller with fewer pages per day.
Selling newsprint today has to be the same bad position the suppliers of materials used to make buggy whips were in about 100 years ago. Each new car or truck owned by an American meant one less potential customer for buggy whips. Today, each user of the internet for news equals one less customer for the old biased crap posing as news in today's fishwraps.
There is a Bowater plant six or seven miles from me. It's a huge employer in this area and I hope they survive.
Are you talking about Virgin Falls? I think Bowater owns that. I have been hiking there 2 times. It is beautiful land, we are going again this summer...
No, I'm near the Calhoun Tennessee plant. I've never heard of Virgin Falls but they may be around here. We have a lot of attractions like that. This Bowater is situated on the Hiwassee River. They've had a terrible time. They imported some beatle that supposed to eat a pest in the pine trees (I think) and the beetles ended up killing most of their trees. They own hundreds, maybe thousands, of acres of timberland around here. I do live in a beautiful area though. I'm sort of in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains.
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