5 of Last Week’s Biggest Losers: SandRidge Energy Inc. (SD) and More

There’s never a shortage of losers in the stock market. Let’s take a closer look at five of this past week’s biggest sinkers.

Company Feb. 8 Weekly Loss My Watchlist
Nuance Communications (NASDAQ:NUAN) $20.00 18% Add
SandRidge Energy (NYSE:SD) $5.79 13% Add
TriQuint Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TQNT) $4.83 12% Add
Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) $96.86 11% Add
Star Scientific (NASDAQ:STSI) $1.91 11% Add

Source: Barron’s.

Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) suffered its sharp slide on Friday after posting disappointing quarterly results. The pioneer of speech recognition came up short on the bottom line, but the real dagger came in the form of hosing down its bottom-line projections for the near term.

SandRidge Energy Inc. (NYSE:SD)SandRidge Energy Inc. (NYSE:SD) also ran low on fuel after downgrades by analysts at Ladenburg Thalmann on Monday and JPMorgan on Tuesday. Activist investors are trying to shake up the oil and gas producer’s leadership, but the company is now warning that replacing its board would lead to a technical default of its credit agreement on its senior notes.

TriQuint Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TQNT) suffered its double shot of analysts downgrades, as Longbow and Needham talked down the company’s prospects after issuing soft guidance. TriQuint is projecting a sharp sequential drip in revenue and a big deficit. Wall Street’s consensus was calling for breakeven results on a much smaller sequential top-line decline.

Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) slipped after posting uninspiring quarterly financials. China’s leading search engine suffered contracting profit margins and offered up ho-hum guidance. TH Capital downgraded Baidu after the report.

Finally, Star Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ:STSI) suffered a 10% slide a week earlier after disputing claims TheStreet.com made on its anatabine research and the initial results of the ASAP Human Thyroid Health Study. The columnist fired back a day later. The fireworks have subsided, and there were no material developments this past week, but confidence is still rattled. The stock suffered another double-digit percentage decline this time.

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The article 5 of Last Week’s Biggest Losers originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Rick Aristotle Munarriz.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Aristotle Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Baidu and Nuance Communications and owns shares of Baidu, Nuance Communications, and TriQuint Semiconductor.

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