Thanks to the request of a new shareholder that the company put itself up for sale, the stock price of Barnes & Noble rose 7.2% in July, the strongest performance of the 10 stocks listed on the Publishers Weekly Stock Index. On July 25, Sandell Asset Management sent a letter to the B&N board saying it thought the retailer would perform better if it was acquired by another company. B&N’s share price rose from $7.10 on the 24th to $8.30 on the 25th. It slowly drifted down to end July at $8.15 per share. Amazon released a mixed second-quarter earnings report that led to a 2% increase in its stock price in July. Scholastic’s stock price had the biggest decline in July. Although it reported higher sales and earnings for fiscal 2017, it said sales and earnings will fall in fiscal 2018 due in part to investments being made to improve its bottom line.
| Company | Jun. 30 | Jul. 31 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barnes & Noble | 7.60 | 8.15 | 7.2% |
| John Wiley | 52.75 | 55.25 | 4.7% |
| News Corp | 14.15 | 14.70 | 3.9% |
| CBS | 63.78 | 65.83 | 3.2% |
| Amazon | 968.00 | 987.78 | 2.0% |
| LSC | 21.40 | 21.38 | -0.09% |
| Educational Dev. Corp. | 10.60 | 10.40 | -1.9% |
| Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 12.30 | 11.95 | -2.8% |
| Pearson | 8.97 | 8.60 | -4.1% |
| Scholastic | 43.59 | 41.43 | -4.9% |
| Publishers Weekly Stock Index | 1,203.14 | 1,225.47 | 1.9% |
| Dow Jones Ave. | 21,349.63 | 21,891.12 | 2.5% |
Source: Publishers Weekly
