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.
The Yonder 40 stock index was down a little over two percent this week — but then all the major stock indices lost ground in five days of up and down trading.
The Yonder 40, a group of forty publicly traded stocks chosen to measure the rural economy, was down 2.2 percent for the week.
The Dow Industrials were down less than half a percent. The small-stock dominated NASDAQ was down by .72 of a percent. The broader S&P 500 was down by 1.2 percent.
Several Yonder stocks had bad weeks. Lee Enterprises, which operates newspapers in smaller towns, was down by more than 11 percent in the week. Lee reported that advertising revenues in May were down 1.7 percent from 2006, reflecting the general poor business environment for newspapers. Peabody Coal was off by nearly 7 percent, after a downgrade of coal stocks. Southwest Bancorp was down by nearly 8 percent after several neutral ratings from analysts.
Gainers in the Yonder 40 were few, but Smithfield Foods and the gunmaker Sturm Ruger were both up by nearly 4 percent in the week.
The Yonder 40 is an experiment in measuring the rural economy. We began July with a basket of stocks that we felt reflected the economy in rural America. There has been some conversation about what the Yonder 40 really means. We hope this discussion continues.
In the meantime, here is a list of the stocks and how they performed over the last week:
THE YONDER 40: JULY 20, 2007
|
Yonder 40 |
Ticker |
Price July 20 |
Price Change This Week |
Percent Change |
| Alico Inc. | ALCO | 55.05 | -$3.57 | -6.1% |
| Andersons Inc. | ANDE | 46.55 | -$1.33 | -2.8% |
| Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. | BSET | 14.04 | $0.16 | 1.2% |
| Berkshire Hathaway Inc. | BRKB | 3,642.50 | -$35.00 | -1.0% |
| Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. | BNI | 90.36 | $1.68 | 1.9% |
| Cabela’s Inc. | CAB | 21.53 | -$0.35 | -1.6% |
| Cato Corp. Cl A | CTR | 23.86 | -$1.15 | -4.6% |
| Cimarex Energy Co. | XEC | 41.2 | $0.74 | 1.8% |
| Citizens Communications Co. | CZN | 15.16 | -$0.39 | -2.5% |
| ConAgra Foods Inc. | CAG | 26.57 | -$0.63 | -2.3% |
| Dean Foods Co. | DF | 31.66 | $0.07 | 0.2% |
| Deere & Co. | DE | 129.07 | -$2.01 | -1.5% |
| DIRECTV Group Inc. | DTV | 24.1 | -$0.84 | -3.4% |
| FairPoint Communications | FRP | 17.07 | -$0.21 | -1.2% |
| Family Dollar Stores | FDO | 34.52 | -$0.28 | -0.8% |
| Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. | FLE | 10.7 | -$0.57 | -5.1% |
| Gaylord Entertainment Co. | GET | 54.66 | -$1.30 | -2.3% |
| Hormel Foods Corp. | HRL | 36.4 | -$1.16 | -3.1% |
| International Speedway Corp. | ISCA | 50.13 | -$0.42 | -0.8% |
| Lee Enterprises Inc. | LEE | 18.54 | -$2.34 | -11.2% |
| Mine Safety Appliances Co. | MSA | 44.95 | -$0.38 | -0.8% |
| Mohawk Industries Inc. | MHK | 97.42 | -$4.39 | -4.3% |
| Monsanto Co. | MON | 69.04 | -$1.02 | -1.5% |
| Peabody Energy | BTU | 46.21 | -$3.35 | -6.8% |
| Penn Virginia Corp. | PVA | 41.29 | -$0.49 | -1.2% |
| Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc. REIT | PCL | 42.42 | -$0.88 | -2.0% |
| Ralcorp Holdings | RAH | 53.71 | -$2.93 | -5.2% |
| Regions Financial Corp. | RF | 32.62 | -$1.43 | -4.2% |
| Skywest Inc. | SKYW | 23.47 | -$0.48 | -2.0% |
| Smithfield Foods Inc. | SFD | 34.62 | $1.26 | 3.8% |
| Southern Co. | SO | 34.26 | -$0.61 | -1.7% |
| Southwest Bancorp | OKSB | 21.26 | -$1.83 | -7.9% |
| Stage Stores Inc. | SSI | 20.71 | -$0.72 | -3.4% |
| Sturm Ruger & Co. | RGR | 16.66 | $0.61 | 3.8% |
| Tractor Supply Co. | TSCO | 49.52 | -$2.79 | -5.3% |
| Tyson Foods Inc. | TSN | 23.67 | -$0.24 | -1.0% |
| UST Inc. | UST | 53.83 | $1.40 | 2.7% |
| Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. | WDR | 27.59 | -$0.11 | -0.4% |
| Wal-Mart Stores Inc. | WMT | 48.06 | -$1.09 | -2.2% |
| Walter Industries Inc. | WLT | 30.33 | -$1.28 | -4.0% |
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