Why Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN), SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (NYSE:TEVA) Are 3 of Today’s Worst Stocks

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The bulls tried valiantly to shrug off a surprising surge in initial unemployment claims and a surprising repeat lull in homebuilding activity, but when push came to shove near the end of the day, the bears were pushing and shoving as much as the bulls were. The S&P 500 closed at 2,104.99 today, down 0.08%.

Such a session would have been envious for some stocks, however. Take Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (NYSE:TEVA), SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN) as an example. These three tickers were among the worst of the worst on Thursday.

Lennar (LEN)

Why Lennar Corporation (LEN), SanDisk Corporation (SNDK) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA) Are 3 of Today's Worst StocksIt wasn’t the only homebuilder stock to tumble on Thursday, but the 2.5% loss shares of Lennar took was the biggest among the market’s largest homebuilding stocks.

The prompt for the pullback from LEN and other names in the residential construction business was mostly alarming news regarding March’s new home-building starts. The Commerce Department reported an annualized pace of only 926,000 units for last month, which is a tad better than February’s figure of 908,000 started homes, but still well below trend.

Though not as steeply, issued permits also fell last month, from an annualized pace of 1.1 million units to 1.04 million. Even with last month’s slight upswing in permits, however, the long-term uptrend appears to have stagnated in recent months.

The developing trend bodes poorly for Lennar and other homebuilders.

SanDisk (SNDK)

SanDisk shares were off sharply on Thursday following the company’s Q1 miss of earnings as well as revenue estimates. Analysts were expecting a profit of 59 cents per share of SNDK, but the company only reported a bottom line of 50 cents per share. Revenue of $1.33 billion also fell short of an estimated top line of $1.36 billion.

Fanning the bearish flames was a contracted Q2 and full-year outlook, sending SanDisk down more than 4% for the session.

The downgrades came quickly, including one from Credit Suisse, which downgraded SNDK from an outperform to only a neutral rating. Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Pfizer wrote:

“Unfortunately, we see multiple SNDK specific issues that need to be addressed beyond the announced reorg/restructuring…We remain concerned about 4 more enduring issues: (1) Enterprise strategy is perhaps overly optimistic (2) 3D NAND migration creates uncertainty around relative cost structures and industry bit growth, (3) High margin retail business slowing structurally and (4) SNDK must renegotiate licensing revenue in Aug-16, now 40% of CY15 EPS.”

Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA)

The hunter has become the hunted, in a sense, and investors aren’t happy about it.

On Thursday, generic drug manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical found out what it was like to be on the losing end of the approval of a generic drug when the FDA approved a generic version of its top-selling drug, Copaxone. The generic version of the multiple sclerosis treatment, called Glatopa, has been labeled in such a way that pharmacists can make the switch even if a prescription calls for Copaxone.

At risk is the U.S. portion — the majority — of Copaxone’s annual sales of about $4 billion. Some experts believe Copaxone sales could be cut in half by 2018 now that a generic version is available.

TEVA finished the day down nearly 4%.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2015/04/lennar-len-sandisk-sndk-teva-pharmaceutical-teva-3-todays-worst-stocks/.

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