With the media discussing the six stocks that fell beneath $10 in the Dow Jones Average, let’s also compare that to the number and percentage of stocks that have fallen beneath $10 per share in the S&P 500 - you can also use this chart as a quick reference.
Stocks Under $10 on the S&P 500 Index (as of March 6, 2009):
(You’ll need to click to see the full list)
As of noon EST on March 6th, 120 - 24% - of the S&P 500 stocks traded less than $10 per share. That’s almost 1 in 4 stocks are currently trading less than double-digits.
Big names AIG, eTrade Financial, Office Depot, and Citigroup comprise a list that trades less than $1.00 per share (technically, Citigroup traded at $1.02 at the time of the screen capture).
The three highest priced stocks in the index were the Washington Post WPO ($320), Google GOOG (just above $300) and CME Group ($179). Only two more stocks traded above $100 (Autozone - AZO and Mastercard - MA) making 5 out of 500 stocks trading above $100 per share (1%).
How about the Dow Jones?
Six (out of 30) stocks now trade less than $10 per share, making that 20%.
No stocks trade above $100 per share, and the three top-priced stocks are Exxon-Mobil (XOM) at $62, Wal-mart (WMT) at $49, and Verizon (VZ) at $27.
Looking at lists of companies that comprise the popular indexes can give us a better perspective than index charts sometimes.
