A disappointing holiday season was a big factor in driving down the stock price of Barnes & Noble in January as its share price fell 11.6% in the month, the largest decline of stocks on the Publishers Weekly Stock Index. January was not a good month for the other bricks-and-mortar stores on the PWSI as Books-A-Million's share price fell 9.0% and hasting Entertainment's stock declined 1.4%. In contrast, Amazon's stock price jumped by almost $15 in the month even as investors and analysts debated whether the fact that the company generated $61 billion in revenue in 2012 but still lost a small amount of money is good or bad. The biggest gain in the month came from Courier Corp., whose stock fell 9.3% in 2012, but, helped by an encouraging quarterly report, posted a 13.6% increase in its share price last month. Overall, the stock prices of eight companies on the PWSI rose, while five fell. McGraw-Hill has been dropped since its pending sale of McGraw-Hill Education will knock it out of publishing.

Winners
Company Dec. 31, 2012 Jan. 31, 2013 % Change
Courier Corp. 10.66 12.11 13.6%
CBS 36.85 41.72 13.2
Walt Disney 49.79 53.88 8.2
Amazon 250.87 265.50 5.8
Educational Dev. Corp. 3.81 3.95 3.7
Losers
Barnes & Noble 15.09 13.34 -11.6
Books-A-Million 2.66 2.42 -9.0
Pearson 19.54 18.98 -2.9
John Wiley 38.93 38.30 -1.6
Hastings Ent. 2.20 2.17 -14.0
PW Stock Index 510.99 534.74 4.6
Dow Jones Aver. 13,104.14 13,860.58 5.8

Source: Publishers Weekly