The Daily Yonder's coverage of rural economic issues, including workforce development and the future of work in rural America, is supported in part by Microsoft.
Maybe we should ignore the Yonder 40 more often!!
We’ve gone two weeks without reporting results from the Daily Yonder’s group of 40 publicly-traded companies that reflect the rural economy. When we last checked in with the Yonder 40, the companies that had a strong base in rural communities were trailing all the other major stock indexes — the NASDAQ, the Dow, the S&P 500.
No longer. The Yonder 40 is alive, well, and kickin’. It now leads all the major measures of the stock market since we began keeping tabs on July 1, 2007. That’s not saying much, of course, since each index is down substantially in the last seven months. It’s just that the Yonder 40 is down by less.
The 40’s comeback has been powered by retail outlets, which had been beaten down over a less than stellar Christmas season. Over the past two weeks, Stage Stores has risen 24%; Tractor Supply is up 22%; Family Dollar is up nearly 8%; Cabela’s rose 10.4%.
Many of the stocks that have driven the Yonder 40 downward over the past six months made a slight comeback. Gaylord Entertainment (Opryland) rose 16%. Lee Enterprises, a newspaper publisher, was up 8%.
The full roster of Yonder 40 stocks and how they’ve fared since January 25 can be found after the jump.
| Companies | Ticker | Price January 25 | Price Change 1/25 to 2/08 | Percent Change 1/25 to 2/08 |
| Alico Inc. | ALCO | $44.48 | -$4.07 | -9.2% |
| Andersons Inc. | ANDE | $44.36 | $2.76 | 6.2% |
| Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. | BNI | $81.80 | $6.23 | 7.6% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | BRKB | $4,630.00 | -$38.00 | -0.8% |
| Bassett Furniture | BSET | $11.08 | $0.93 | 8.4% |
| Peabody Energy Corp. | BTU | $56.07 | -$2.19 | -3.9% |
| Cabela’s Inc. | CAB | $13.52 | $1.40 | 10.4% |
| ConAgra Foods Inc. | CAG | $21.06 | -$0.06 | -0.3% |
| Cato Corp. Cl A | CTR | $15.19 | $0.85 | 5.6% |
| Citizens Communications | CZN | $10.75 | $0.19 | 1.8% |
| Deere & Co. | DE | $82.88 | -$0.42 | -0.5% |
| Dean Foods Co. | DF | $28.11 | -$1.20 | -4.3% |
| DIRECTV Group | DTV | $21.99 | $1.14 | 5.2% |
| Family Dollar Stores Inc. | FDO | $18.23 | $1.43 | 7.8% |
| Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. | FLE | $4.92 | -$0.87 | -17.7% |
| FairPoint Communications | FRP | $10.59 | -$0.34 | -3.2% |
| Gaylord Entertainment Co. | GET | $28.12 | $4.48 | 15.9% |
| Hormel Foods | HRL | $37.32 | $1.54 | 4.1% |
| International Speedway Corp. | ISCA | $39.29 | $2.51 | 6.4% |
| Lee Enterprises | LEE | $11.04 | $0.87 | 7.9% |
| Mohawk Industries Inc. | MHK | $72.86 | $5.00 | 6.9% |
| Monsanto Co. | MON | $108.13 | $1.79 | 1.7% |
| Mine Safety Appliances Co. | MSA | $43.33 | $0.15 | 0.3% |
| Southwest Bancorp | OKSB | $16.85 | -$0.12 | -0.7% |
| Plum Creek Timber REIT | PCL | $41.64 | -$0.83 | -2.0% |
| Penn Virginia Corp. | PVA | $41.65 | $1.90 | 4.6% |
| Ralcorp Holdings | RAH | $54.85 | $0.51 | 0.9% |
| Regions Financial Corp. | RF | $22.79 | $0.42 | 1.8% |
| Sturm Ruger & Co. | RGR | $8.20 | -$0.60 | -7.3% |
| Smithfield Foods | SFD | $24.45 | $2.54 | 10.4% |
| Skywest Inc. | SKYW | $25.01 | $0.34 | 1.4% |
| Southern Co. | SO | $36.09 | -$0.34 | -0.9% |
| Stage Stores Inc. | SSI | $10.68 | $2.60 | 24.3% |
| Tractor Supply Co. | TSCO | $33.01 | $7.26 | 22.0% |
| Tyson Foods | TSN | $13.26 | $0.42 | 3.2% |
| UST Inc. | UST | $52.33 | $2.69 | 5.1% |
| Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. | WDR | $31.55 | $0.63 | 2.0% |
| Walter Industries | WLT | $40.83 | $3.08 | 7.5% |
| Wal-Mart Stores | WMT | $48.09 | $0.67 | 1.4% |
| Cimarex Energy | XEC | $39.15 | $4.55 | 11.6% |
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