By: E&P Staff After hammering Tribune Co.'s share price down to record 52-week lows on Tuesday and Wednesday, Wall Street fell in love all over again with the newspaper and electronic media giant at week's end, bidding shares up to $32.72 at Friday's close -- a gain of 3.7% from Wednesday's low.
Investors clearly saw a buying opportunity in all the bad news that Tribune had this week and recently. The market ignored syndicated economist Chuck Jaffee, who named Tribune the "Stupid Investment of the Week." While saying his column was not meant to be a "sell signal," Jaffee wrote that "this is a stock where it's hard to get comfortable that management is moving in the right direction."
Tribune's stock bounceback began Thursday, the same day the company announced that third-quarter profits had plunged 82%, mostly because of the large one-time charge it took to pay a nearly $1 billion tax bill the government says it owes for the deal the old Times Mirror Co. made to shed legal publisher Matthew Bender plus another separate transaction involving another specialty publisher.
Tribune is appealing the judgment of the U.S. Tax Court, and took on $850 million in debt to make the payment.
Tribune has traded in a 52-week range of $31.55 to 44.32.
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