Can’t afford a Sunday Star? Buy McClatchy stock

As the Star reported Friday, the paper’s corporate parent, the McClatchy Company, is in trouble with the New York Stock Exchange. You can buy three shares of stock in the nation’s third-largest newspaper publisher for less than the cost of a Sunday edition of the Star.

McClatchy has less than 45 days to avoid delisting of its stock by submitting a plan detailing how it will stop the bleeding.

It won’t be easy. The company has taken a Wall Street-style beating: Its market capitalization, according to McClatchy’s most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, is $52.4 million — well below the $75 million required to play ball in the NYSE. And the company’s stock has spent more than 30 days trading at an average of less than $1 a share, another no-no. The clock counting down to the stock’s delisting started ticking April 14.

Step 1 of the plan seems to be in place, though: Raise the price of the paper. As of this past weekend, the Sunday Star now costs $2 at newsstands. (A home-delivery rate hike is being rolled out now, too.)

It’s working! Monday, McClatchy shares closed at 59 cents — up a penny from Friday.