What was your favorite ____________ moment?

I read an article recently on the AOL Money site about Companies Hit Hardest By Credit Crisis

It was a list of 18 well known companies that are in serious financial trouble.

I was a bit surprised by some of the incredibly low stock prices listed in the article, so I pulled up the current stock prices and was even more shocked.

Here are the highlights

Company name is followed by 10/29 stock price per share.

• Radio Shack - $12.55 - Caters to typically low end consumers who don't have a lot of spare cash. Tied themselves to the cell phone market which is drying up.
• General Motors - $6.25 - Losing $1 BILLION per month and people that want to actually buy cars and trucks are now having trouble getting credit to do so.
• Research In Motion - $46.99 - The company that brought us the Crackberry is on the way down. Apple's iPhone outsold Blackberry last quarter and look for that trend to continue.
• Safeway - $20.49 - This large food retailer (grocery store) only made $451 million profit last year after posting $10 Billion in sales. Less than 5% profit margin.
• Apple - $99.91 - What's missing from the stock price is the 50% drop off, down from $202. Macs are expensive and iPods last forever, I still have my original shuffle from 4 years ago. Once the iPhone market is saturated look for an even further decline.
• Disney - $23.91 - While the movie business is booming for Disney after the departure of Pixar, the theme park attendance is the lowest in decades.
• Wynn Resorts - $32.88 - Proving that no place is immune from the financial belt tightening. One of most successful hotel chains in Las Vegas has plenty of rooms available.
• Standard Pacific - A very historically successful home builder may just disappear in 2009 where new home sales and construction could come to a standstill as thousands of foreclosed homes are on the market at dirt cheap prices.
• Now here are the really bad ones with stock prices less than $1.00 per share.
  
• Sirius XM Radio - $0.36 - Yes that's 36 cents per share. The recent merger of Sirius and XM may not ever get a chance to play out. Satellite radio is driven by the new car market. (see GM topic above)
• Charter Communications - $0.40 - I am writing this while connected through a Charter High Speed Internet line but in 2009 I may need to look for another ISP. I have also called them to ask about getting some new DVRs and they are constantly "out of stock"
• Circuit City - $0.27 - The replacement of the CEO may be too little too late for a company losing the battle between Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

Other trends to watch this holiday season.

Overall consumer electronics spending. Typically electronic sales boom from Halloween to New Years but don't expect that to continue this year. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft may see all time lows of game console sales this year. Waiting in line to get a WII Fit may not be an issue.

Newspaper chains. 2009 may see the end of curling up on the couch with the Sunday paper and a nice cup of coffee. Replaced by sitting in front of your computer reading the headlines.