A humorous look at the companies that caught our eye, for better or worse, this week
HERSHEY - DOG
You know that post-Halloween tummy ache you’d get after eating three Reese’s peanut butter cups, two Hershey bars, a pack of Twizzlers and eight Hershey’s kisses? Shareholders of Hershey know the feeling: The stock plunged after the candy maker posted sharply lower third-quarter earnings and cut its full-year sales outlook, hit by rising ingredient costs and weakness in China and the United States. Talk about a scary stock chart.
HSY (NYSE), $88.69 (U.S.), down $6.98 or 7.3% over week
HORIZON NORTH LOGISTICS - DOG
Living in a remote work camp isn’t for everyone – but at least the money’s good. Unfortunately, shareholders of work-force-lodging provider Horizon North Logistics just took a 50-per-cent pay cut: Hammered by a slump in energy and mining activity, the company posted a 32-per-cent drop in third-quarter revenue and cut its dividend in half to 4 cents a share, sending the stock to a loss. Investors are developing a case of cabin fever.
HNL (TSX), $2.25, down 60¢ or 21.1% over week
GOPRO - DOG
GoPro’s wearable cameras have captured plenty of extreme wipeouts on skateboards, surfboards and the like. But the stock’s collapse makes them all look tame by comparison. Hit by lower-priced competitors and slow sales of its new Hero4 Session camera – for which it recently cut the price by $100 – GoPro’s third-quarter results came in below expectations. With the stock down about 70 per cent in the past year, investors are nursing a gnarly wound.
GPRO (Nasdaq), $25.00 (U.S.), down $4.15 or 14.2% over week
ROADRUNNER TRANSPORTATION - DOG
Remember those cartoons where Wile E. Coyote was always getting an anvil dropped on his head? Well, now it’s the Roadrunner’s turn: Citing rising insurance costs, weak demand in some sectors and the termination of certain contractors, trucking and logistics company Roadrunner Transportation slashed its third-quarter earnings guidance by about two-thirds and warned that the fourth quarter won’t be any better. Look out for that truck!
RRTS (NYSE), $10.64 (U.S.), down $7.16 or 40.2% over week
GRUBHUB - DOG
Thanks to GrubHub, customers can order just about any kind of food online and have it delivered to their door. Too bad the only thing investors got delivered this week were some hefty losses: Hurt by higher costs and service disruptions tied to a new technology platform, the company posted lower-than-expected results and gave a weak outlook. With Amazon and Uber also muscling in on the food delivery business, the stock’s gone stale.
GRUB (NYSE), $23.98 (U.S.), down $7.06 or 22.7% over week