Industry Stocks: September 2017 Performances

The Publishers Weekly Stock Index fell 2.3% in September, underperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which rose 2.1%. The most notable characteristic of the PWSI in September was that three companies whose stock price has struggled in recent months had the largest gains. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s stock price, which fell 14.6% in August after disappointing second-quarter results, was the big winner in September, up 18.1%. Similarly, Pearson, which had a large decline in August, saw its shares rise 4.4% in September. The only other company on the PWSI whose stock price rose last month was the printer LSC Communications, with its share price up 2.5% following a 24.6% decline in August. Despite the small gain in September, LSC’s share price through the first nine months of 2017 was down 44.3% from the comparable period in 2016.