Lamar Advertising Shares Dropped: What You Need to Know (LAMR)

Lamar Advertising Shares Dropped: What You Need to Know

Watch stocks you care about

The single, easiest way to keep track of all the stocks that matter...

Your own personalized stock watchlist!

It's a 100% FREE Motley Fool service...

Click Here Now

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: On a day like today, maybe Lamar Advertising (Nasdaq: LAMR ) investors should be pleased to see their stock only down 11%. I doubt they are, but maybe they should be...

So what: ...or maybe not. After all, the company did beat earnings this morning, reporting $0.12 per share in profit, a nice comeback from last year's second-quarter loss.

Now what: The problem, it seems -- aside from the general market panic today -- is that Lamar says next quarter's revenues will slip a bit from what it did in Q2, and fall below analyst estimates. For a stock that analysts were already thinking would be just marginally profitable, and sells for 85 times expected 2012 earnings, that's not good news. For a company that's trying to compete in a tough industry, burdened by $2.3 billion in debt, it's actually pretty bad news.

Are you feeling any more optimistic about Lamar than this? Add it to your Fool watchlist. See if they can turn this thing around.

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own (or short) shares of Lamar Advertising. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.