Death care stocks, StoneMor Partners and Carriage Services, both components of the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI), had postive movements last Friday which lifted their companies stock price and market capitalization.

Carriage Services reported Year End earnings for 2017  last week and we at Funeral Director Daily commented that the company “keeps chugging along and making money, sometimes in spite of themselves.”  We also mentioned, that while they have challenges, they appeared to increase their same store sales 3.6%.

Evidently, at least some investors agreed with our thoughts as Equities.com reported in a release that you can read here that Carriage Services stock jumped 5.3% on Friday to $27.64 per share.  That gain moved Carriage Services market value to $444.61 million.

StoneMore Partners also made the financial news in an article from the Ledger Gazette that you can read here.  As you know, StoneMor has dropped from a high of over $30 per share to a low of $4.61 per share over the past three years.  However, the company stock closed up 4.41% on Friday at a closing price of $6.16.  The closing price of $6.16 gives StoneMor a market value of about $233 million.

It was reported on Friday that major shareholder Oaktree Value Equity Fund Group added to their holdings with an additional 121,700 shares at an average price of $5.94.  It was the 4th purchase of over 100,000 shares by an Oaktree fund since February 6, according to E-Trade information.  The Ledger Gazette article also made a point to mention that Raymond James Financial Services and Arrow Investment Adivsors LLC have also raised their stake in StoneMor in the last quarter.

As of the close of the market on Friday, Tips Ranks Analyst Consensus ranks StoneMor Partners a Hold and ranks Carriage Services a Moderate Buy.

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