Tough Market Cannibalizes Prices Of Weakest Companies (SIRI)(GRMN)(MOT)(DELL

No rest for the weak in a market which even punishes mediocrity.

Several widely traded companies made new lows.

Firms with heavy debt and poor operating profit prospects were hit particularly hard. Sirius (NASDAQ: SIRI), which is still awaiting approval of its deal with XM Satellite (NASDAQ: XMSR), bottomed. So did Motorola (NYSE: MOT), which appears to be doing worse each quarter in core handset business. Journal Register (NYSE: JRC), the most troubled of the newspaper companies, spent part of the weak under $.20 and will be delisted this week.

Several stocks which are leaders in sectors which appear to be weakening also hit lows. Gannett (NYSE: GCI), part of the newspaper industry, found a new bottom as did PC market No. 2 player Dell (NYSE: DELL).

Stocks in some fields which had been hot up, up until recently, are beginning to be hurt, showing how fast a sector can disintegrate.  GPS company Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) hit a 52-week low of $44.51 after being at $125.68 in late October of last year. Wall St. is worried that consumer electronics sales could be hurt by the recession and a number of cellphone companies are adding GPS functions to their products.

Douglas A. McIntyre