The bulls made a valiant effort to start the new trading week, but could never fully contain the bearish charge. The S&P 500‘s close of 2087.79 was 0.18% lower than Friday’s closing level, pushing the index at least a little closer to a proverbial tipping point.
Monday was considerably worse for GoPro Inc (NASDAQ:GPRO), Perrigo Company plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE:PRGO) and Xerox Corp (NYSE:XRX) as these three names were largely leading the bearish effort.
Here’s a closer look at what went wrong for each.
GoPro Inc (GPRO)
GoPro shares lost more than 8% of their value on Monday after a key analyst questioned the camera-maker’s capacity to turn things around.
Pacific Crest analyst Brad Erickson did the deed, holding GPRO shares at a “sector weight” opinion, but lowering his revenue and income estimates for this year and next.
The real damage to GoPro shares, however, stemmed from Erickson’s pessimism regarding the company’s future. He wrote, “We remain skeptical that new software, acquisitions can improve GoPro’s core utility problem,” alluding to the notion that there simply aren’t enough consumers interested in paying a bit of a premium (or a big premium) for action cameras.
Underscoring this problem is Q1 revenue expectations of $169 million, versus revenue of $363 million for the same quarter a year earlier.
Perrigo Company plc Ordinary Shares (PRGO)
Talk about being a fair-weather friend! Perrigo Company lost its CEO to a competitor today shortly after pulling back on its full-year profit guidance, sending PRGO shares down more than 18%.
This morning, pharmaceutical company Perrigo lowered its per-share profit guidance from a range between $9.50 and $9.80 to only a range of $8.20 and $8.60 per share of PRGO, mostly on the heels of mounting competition and a slow-down in new drug launches.
Simultaneously, Perrigo CEO Joseph Papa confirmed the rumor that he’s headed elsewhere. Today, he was named CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX).
Aside from the sheer disruption any CEO exit brings with it, TheStreet.com’s Jim Cramer managed to reserve his comments to a relatively polite “It’s just poor timing. He leaves Perrigo in a less than optimal financial situation.”
Xerox Corp (XRX)
Last but not least, already wounded from the demise of photocopiers, Xerox is now struggling to fend off the effects of waning printer sales.
Last quarter — the company’s first fiscal quarter of the year — Xerox earned 22 cents per share on revenue of $4.28 billion in revenue. The top line topped estimates of $4.24 billion, but was still down 4% on a year-over-year basis. The bottom line missed estimates of 23 cents per share.
Looking ahead, the company anticipates a profit of between 24 and 26 cents per share for the current quarter, and a profit of between $1.10 and $1.20 for the full year, versus a consensus estimate of $1.11 per share of XRX.
Nevertheless, the 13% loss Xerox shares booked today’s says investors are anything but impressed.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
