Investing

3M Can't Shake Ranking as Dow's Poorest Performing Stock

Paul Ausick

Published: August 25, 2018 9:05 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 6:49 pm

Industrial giant 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) saw a small increase to its share price last week, but the gain was not enough to lift it out of the Dow Jones industrials cellar. Shares added about 0.3% on no significant news, and 3M’s stock has now dropped 12.8% for the year to date and marks its third straight week as the Dow’s worst stock.

The second-worst Dow stock so far this year is Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), which is down 12.3%. That is followed by Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), down 9.3%, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), down 7.7%, and McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), down 7.4%. Of the 30 Dow stocks, 14 are showing a loss to date in 2018.

The blue-chip index added 121 points last week to close at 25,669.32, up about 0.5% compared to the previous Friday’s close. The Dow closed up less than 1% for the second quarter and down 1.8% for the first six months of 2018. For the year to date, the index is up 3.9%, trailing both the S&P 500 (up 6.6%) and the Nasdaq Composite (up 13.4%).

3M’s small share price gain last week was slightly lower than the 0.5% gain posted by the industrials sector as a whole. Over the past 30 days, industrial sector stocks are up about 3.4%, third-best of the 11 S&P sectors. But for the year to date, the industrial sector is up just 0.3%, well below the S&P 500’s year-to-date gain.

The industrial conglomerate subsector, which includes 3M, Honeywell and GE, has performed especially badly, down about 12.4% in 2018 and down more than 17% over the past 12 months.

3M stock closed at $205.29 on Friday, up about 1.3% for the day, in a 52-week range of $190.57 to $259.77. The 12-month consensus price target on the stock is $210.00 and the forward price-to-earnings ratio is 18.28.