TSC Ratings' Updates: Gannett

Wynn's stock is off 6.01% from its price level of one year ago, reflecting the general market trend and ignoring their higher earnings per share compared with the year-earlier quarter. Despite the stock's decline during the last year, it is still somewhat more expensive (in proportion to its earnings over the last year) than most other stocks in its industry. We feel, however, that other strengths this company displays offset this slight negative. Wynn Resorts had been rated a hold since June 24, 2008.

Hilltop Holdings (HTH Quote), which operates as a property and casualty insurance company, was downgraded to sell.

This downgrade is driven by a few notable weaknesses, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared with investing in most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its weak operating cash flow, decline in the stock price during the past year and feeble growth in its earnings per share.

The firm's net operating cash flow currently generates a negative cash flow of $3.42 million, which is a significant decrease of about 122% when compared with the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing with the industry average, the firm's growth rate is much lower.

The change in net income from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the S&P 500 and greatly outperformed compared with the Insurance industry average. The net income has decreased by 7.8% when compared with the same quarter one year ago, dropping from to a loss of $6.88 million from a loss of $6.39 million.

The return on equity has improved slightly when compared with the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared with other companies in the Insurance industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, Hilltop has underperformed against that of the industry average and is significantly less than that of the S&P 500.