Short-term results “can and will be lumpy,” Fortress Investment Group CEO Wesley Edens told investors after the firm announced first-quarter results earlier this year. When does “lumpy” become something more serious?

Rapidly shriveling stock prices have produced a new misery index for the nation’s beleaguered newspaper industry: sky-high stock dividend yields. So high, some observers believe, that some cash-strapped companies will soon have to cut dividends, putting even more pressure on their stock prices.