Stocks at New Highs, New Lows for 11/28

by Alyssa Oursler | November 28, 2012 9:59 am

Here’s one stock hitting a 52-week high and one finding a 52-week low today:

New High: Ralcorp Holdings

After news broke yesterday that food giant ConAgra (NYSE:CAG[1]) is buying Ralcorp Holdings (NYSE:RAH[2]) — maker of Chef Boyardee pasta and other products — for nearly $5 billion[3], both stocks got a boost.

Shares of Ralcorp Holding, for one, soared more than 26% on the day. A slight bump after the open this morning puts the stock at a new 52-week high just under $90. Before the jump, RAH was suffering double-digit losses on the year. Now, it has year-to-date gains of around 3%.

ConAgra investors also smiled on the news. The stock’s small gains sent it to a new 52-week low just under $30 and brought its climb since January into the double digits.

The addition of Ralcorp’s private-label cereals, pastas, crackers, jams and jellies, syrups and frozen waffles makes ConAgra into a packaged food giant with $18 billion dollars in annual sales and exposure to fast-growing retailers like Whole Foods (NYSE:WFM[4]) and Costco (NASDAQ:COST[5]), Reuters reported[6].

New Low: Cliff’s Natural Resources

Shares of Cliff’s Natural Resources (NYSE:CLF[7]) lost more than 4% by mid-morning today, sending the stock to a new 52-week low under $30. The stock has lost more than half of its value since the start of the year, when shares costs more than $60.

Analysts have been hard on the battered stock of late, as Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GM[8]) recently downgraded Cliff’s from “neutral” to “sell” and an analysts from BMO Capital reported that he expects the company to significantly cut its dividend.

Of course, after this sell-off, the stock’s 62-cent payout yields a whopping 8.7%.

As of this writing, Alyssa Oursler did not own a position in any of the aforementioned companies.

Endnotes:

  1. CAG: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=CAG
  2. RAH: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=RAH
  3. for nearly $5 billion: https://investorplace.com/2012/11/ralcorp-purchase-turns-conagra-into-packaged-food-giant/
  4. WFM: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=WFM
  5. COST: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=COST
  6. Reuters reported: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-conagra-offer-ralcorp-idUSBRE8AQ0KC20121127
  7. CLF: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=CLF
  8. GM: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=GM

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/11/stocks-at-new-highs-new-lows-for-1128/