Sony's Electronics Business Is Worthless. Hooray?

During its long, painful decline, Sony has suffered plenty of indignities. Given that history, even embarrassing news about the company’s troubled consumer electronics business comes as just another blow to the company’s pride. Atul Goyal of Jefferies on Monday published a report valuing Sony’s consumer electronics business at zero. Yes, Sony, the pride of Japan Inc., the company behind the Walkman and the Trinitron, has a worthless consumer electronics business.

The thing is, that’s progress! As Goyal writes, when we’re talking about Sony’s beleaguered consumer electronics business, zero is good. At least it’s no longer deep in the red. Jefferies had valued the division at negative ¥538 billion ($4.56 billion). Although the company in September projected a loss of ¥230 billion and announced it would not pay an annual dividend for the first time since its 1958 initial public offering, the stock price has since jumped more than 30 percent. In part, that’s because of the boost most Japanese stocks received from the Bank of Japan’s surprise stimulus announcement last month.