Blogger: Don't uncork champagne on news stocks

The average annual rise in newspaper industry stocks last year was 200.6%, leading blogger Alan Mutter says today in a new post.

"But don’t uncork the champagne just yet,'' he writes today in a new post. "When you compare the value of the publishing shares at the end of 2009 with where they stood four years earlier, you will find that they have shed, on average, nearly three-quarters of their value since 2005, the halcyon year for modern newspapering."

NWS shares are one of the few exceptions in Mutter's review, however.

The performance from 2005-2009 for major stocks I follow, with their 2005 closing prices, according to Mutter's analysis:

• Gannett: down 72.7% from $54.31
• New York Times Co.: down 51.9% from $25.71
• News Corp.: down 4.3% from $16.61

Earlier: company-by-company share performances for 2008-2009

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