Avoid this (new) penny

Article Excerpt

Yellow Media $0.22, symbol YLO on Toronto (formerly Yellow Pages Income Fund) has collapsed from around $6 at the start of this year to pennies, and has quit paying dividends. When Yellow Media first sold units to the public in 2003, many investors thought Yellow was a well-established company. In fact, it was more like an unwanted, over-the-hill business. In our view, it was just another new issue. As long-time readers know, we advise staying out of virtually all new issues. They come to market when it’s a good time for the company or its insiders to sell, and that almost always isn’t a good time for you to buy. Over the last few years, we continued to recommend avoiding Yellow. We pointed out that it gave its product away for free, and relied on ad renewals from professionals such as lawyers and dentists, and from merchants and local service providers such as movers. Selling ads in printed directories was increasingly difficult as…