Death Knell Stocks

We'll start this one off with a little classical literary reference: “Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee”...

We think that was AT&T's motto when it continued to pay its dividends throughout The Great Depression.

So, a death knell refers to the sounding of a bell when someone dies or leaves the scallops in 30 seconds too long in a reality cooking show. When you hear that sound for a publicly traded company (figuratively hear it anyway), that’s a death knell stock.

That is, it's a stock circling the drain (again, figuratively), still technically a going concern but likely headed toward a grim conclusion, like (quite literally this time) bankruptcy. Typically, you can identify these stocks because their NYSE-or-NASDAQ-listed price has fallen below $1. Those stock generally don't have much time left before they get delisted. Volume is low. Sellside coverage is low or anemic or nil. "Nobody" cares about the stock any more.

Sometimes something happens to pull some value from it in a "strategic sale." But White Knights aren't that popular these days. Or at least are hard to find.