Why Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (VRX), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) and Macy’s Inc (M) are 3 of Today’s Worst Stocks

Advertisement

Once again, the bears had a prime opportunity to tip the market over. Once again, they squandered it.

Why Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (VRX), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) and Macy's Inc (M) are 3 of Today's Worst StocksWhile stocks started the day’s trading mostly in the red, cutting into Wednesday’s opening gap, by the time the closing bell rang, the seller’s chickened out. The S&P 500’s close of 2383.12 was up 0.05% from Thursday’s last trade.

Not every name caught a break, though. Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M) each managed to attract a swarm of sellers, with each stock using up more than its fair share of red ink on the last trading day of the week.

Here’s the deal.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX)

By most accounts, Valeant Pharmaceuticals shares should be up today. The cash-strapped, debt-laden company has been looking to sell assets to pay down debt and raise some money, and that’s what it said it did today. That is, it completed the sale of CeraVe, AcneFree and AMBI skincare brands to L’Oreal, pocketing $1.3 billion.

And yet, there it is: VRX stock slumped 5% Friday to close more than 19% lower for the week. Shares even reached a new multi-year low in the process.

The weakness isn’t complicated — VRX investors simply aren’t convinced the turnaround effort will meaningfully take hold. This reality surfaced on Tuesday, when VRX also appeared on the daily “worst three” list. Although the company topped its fourth-quarter estimates, Valeant didn’t explain how it would stop the deterioration in sales of its key products. Its Ebitda outlook for 2017 was pretty grim as well.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

To be fair, the 575% gain Advanced Micro Devices shares dished out between the end of February 2015 and the end of February 2016 made it an easy target. Still, the profit-takers weren’t gentle. Today’s 6.2% setback for AMD stock brings its three-day loss to a sizeable 10%.

The prod for the pullback was doubt that its new ballyhooed computer processor would live up to expectations. Called the Ryzen (or “Zen”), AMD was hoping to make it the centerpiece of what would have been an impressive turnaround story. The CPU was not only competitive with anything rival Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) was making, but would be considerably cheap on a dollar-per-Ghz basis.

Once the CPU was tested and reviewed, though, hardcore PC gamers — an important market — weren’t blown away by it. Ars Technica reviewer Mark Walton commented “The [Ryzen] 1800X lags behind its Intel counterparts in gaming, regardless of whether it’s running at the same clock speed or higher.” And Ars Technica wasn’t the only site with a lackluster opinion on the Ryzen processor either.

Macy’s (M)

Last but not least, not that it was an ironclad guarantee to begin with, but hopes that struggling retailer Macy’s would be acquired by Canadian department store chain Hudson Bay were dashed on Friday when the prospective suitor announced it was unable to secure the financing it needed to get such a deal done. Some viewed it as the last bastion of hope to salvage the once iconic department store name.

M ended the day down 4.3%.

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


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/03/why-valeant-pharmaceuticals-intl-inc-vrx-advanced-micro-devices-inc-amd-and-macys-inc-m-are-three-of-todays-worst-stocks/.

©2024 InvestorPlace Media, LLC