Arkansas stocks fare well as Dow and S&P 500 tumble
by March 13, 2015 10:47 pm 95 views
Arkansas’ publicly traded concerns held their own this week as many U.S. stocks got caught in the broader market’s downdraft with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 falling for the third straight week.
During an up-and-down week that saw oil prices continue to fall, the dollar strengthen, and consumer optimism taking a hit, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 300 earlier in the week but lost those gains by Friday’s closing bell. The nation’s top blue chip index fell 145.91 points on Friday, or 0.8%, to 17,749.31.
The biggest news among Arkansas stocks came during the mid-week session when S&P 500 component Tyson hit a snag after the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a suspected case of avian influenza, or bird flu, in Arkansas. Since Wednesday’s opening bells, Tyson’s stock has been on the downward path and closed Friday at $37.42.
Since touching a high of $40.82 in Monday’s session, Tyson’s shares have declined nearly 8.3%, losing nearly $1 billion in total market value as an average of 5.7 million shares have traded hands over the past 10 days. Tyson’s shares are down nearly 10% over the last 12 months, touching a high of $44.24 on April Fool’s Day in 2014.
BANKING RIVALS ENJOY STRONG STOCK PERFORMANCE
Meanwhile, other advancers in this week’s session were Arkansas’ regional banking rivals, Simmons First, Bank of the Ozark and Home Bancshares. The fast-growing Arkansas banks have continued to benefit from recent out-of-state acquisitions and strong quarterly earnings performances.
Among the group, Conway’s Home Bancshares was the clear winner, climbing to finish the week at $33.95, a gain of $2.01 from Monday’s opening bell price of $31.84.
Other winners in this week’s session included America’s Car-Mart, Murphy USA, Dillard’s and J.B. Hunt. ArcBest Corp. also regained its footing after an unusual blip in last week’s session where the Fort Smith trucking firm lost more than 7% of its market value. It ended this week’s session at $40.85, up 2% for the week.
In the losing column, Windstream continued to trade at or near its 52-week low. The Little Rock telecom closed out the week at $7.54 after Wall Street analyst Michael Rollins of Citigroup said Thursday that the company’s ongoing financial restructuring can support a higher valuation, calling it a “win-win” situation for shareholders. Still, Windstream lost ground over the 5-day session after touching a weekly high of $7.91 on Wednesday. For the week, Windstream shares shed 16 cents, closing Friday just pennies off its 52-week low of $7.42.
Other Arkansas decliners for the week were Acxiom Corp., Deltic Timber, Murphy Oil and market bellwether and Dow Jones component Wal-Mart Stores. After announcing executive changes this week to improve its U.S. grocery division, shares in the world’s largest retailer closed Friday at $81.90, down 1.1% for the week.
Not surprisingly, Murphy Oil fell in tandem with crude oil prices, which fell nearly 10% during the week. Light sweet crude fell $2.21, or 4.7%, to settle at $44.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Murphy ended the week at $46.83, down 3.4% for the week. The El Dorado-based oil giant is down a whopping 22.7% over the past 12 months, and well off its 52-week high of $68.43 last summer when oil prices were trading over $100 per barrel.