Lexmark holds

Although Lexmark's (NYSE LXK) stock price officially dropped a percent-and-a-half today to $45.57, in today's negative market I'll call that a hold. The bad news from yesterday took its toll on the price then but now the news would seem to have been fully digested. However a provocative tidbit at 24/7 Wall Street by Douglas McIntyre entitled "Lexmark: Canary in a Coal Mine" suggests a linkage that I hadn't thought about too much lately. My first reaction was that the "coal mine" in the metaphor is the larger printer industry (especially the branded suppliers, as LXK's woes are partially being blamed on recent success of third party supplies vendors), but McIntyre is questioning the impending health of both the printer and PC businesses, where the link is stronger than we might think (they're used together as part of the same system after all.)

Comments