Industry Stocks: March Performances

Company February 28 March 31 % CHANGE
The Publishers Weekly Stock Index, which fell 7.4% in February, rallied a bit in March with the Index increasing 4% in the month, an increase that bettered the 1.3% gain recorded by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. During the month, the stock prices of 15 companies rose, while prices fell at seven. The best performer in the month was Amazon.com, whose stock price increased 18.3% despite dropping $1.15 on March 31 on word that traffic was down 7% during the first weeks of the Iraqi war. Scholastic's ability to hit its lower financial targets for the quarter ended February 28 pushed its share price up 14.6% in the month, recovering some of the ground lost in the 34% plunge in February. Hastings Entertainment's stock also benefited from the retailer's results meeting lower expectations for the quarter ended January 31. Reader's Digest stock price continued to slide in the month, off 5.5%, while the stock prices of two major educational publishers, Reed Elsevier and McGraw-Hill Cos., slipped 2.3% and 1.1%, respectively, on concerns about the funding situation for elhi textbooks.
Winners
Amazon.com 22.01 26.03 18.3%
Scholastic 23.46 26.89 14.6
Advanced Marketing Services 10.25 11.19 9.2
Hastings Entertainment 3.77 4.10 8.7
Courier Corp. 45.61 49.26 8.0
Losers
Thomas Nelson 9.27 8.51 -8.2%
Reader's Digest 10.81 10.21 -5.5
Reed Elsevier plc 29.70 29.00 -2.3
Educational Dev. Corp. 9.75 9.54 -2.1
McGraw-Hill Cos. 56.24 55.59 -1.1
Publishers Weekly
Stock Index 360.01 374.47 4.0%
Dow Jones Average 7,891.08 7,992.13 1.3%