TheStreet Ratings Top 10 Rating Changes

Rating Change #4

Meredith Corporation (MDP) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from hold to buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, attractive valuation levels, expanding profit margins, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and solid stock price performance. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.

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Highlights from the ratings report include:

• MDP's revenue growth trails the industry average of 13.4%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 2.0%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share.
• The gross profit margin for MEREDITH CORP is rather high; currently it is at 60.50%. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Regardless of the strong results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of 6.10% trails the industry average.
• The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.52, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Despite the fact that MDP's debt-to-equity ratio is low, the quick ratio, which is currently 0.59, displays a potential problem in covering short-term cash needs.
• After a year of stock price fluctuations, the net result is that MDP's price has not changed very much. Although its weak earnings growth may have played a role in this flat result, don't lose sight of the fact that the performance of the overall market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, was essentially similar. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year.

Meredith Corporation, a media and marketing company, engages in magazine publishing and related brand licensing, television broadcasting, integrated marketing, interactive media, and video production businesses in the United States. It operates in two segments, National Media and Local Media. The company has a P/E ratio of 13.4, below the average media industry P/E ratio of 13.8 and below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Meredith has a market cap of $1.15 billion and is part of the services sector and media industry. Shares are down 0.5% year to date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.

You can view the full Meredith Ratings Report or get investment ideas from our investment research center.

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