Volatile trading persisted on the stock market last week as investors scrambled to react to a flurry of positive and negative news that sparked both buying and selling positions.
On Friday alone, all Wall Street main indices fell into the red territory, with trading dampened mainly by tariff threats and expectations of a higher inflation rate in the US.
Ten companies under mixed sectors also mirrored the decline, with each booking double-digit slumps. This article details which 10 companies suffered the most last week and what specifically caused investor pessimism.
To come up with last week’s worst performers, we considered only the stocks with at least $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.
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10. Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)
Illumina saw its share prices last week drop by 9.56 percent to $111.06 apiece from the $132.74 apiece on January 31, as investor sentiment was weighed down by an analyst’s downgraded rating for the company’s stock.
On Friday, TD Cowen cut its stock rating for ILMN to “hold” following poor earnings performance in the full year 2024.
In its earnings release, ILMN widened its net loss for the full year 2024 to $1.2 billion from the $1.16 billion registered in 2023 amid a 2.9-percent drop in revenues at $4.37 billion versus $4.5 billion year-on-year.
The company, however, achieved a net income of $187 million last quarter, a reversal from the $176 million net loss registered in the same period a year earlier.
According to TD Cowen, its downgraded outlook also considered weaker-than-expected next-generation sequencing consumable growth, increasing competition, and geopolitical risks in China.
9. Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA)
Moderna Inc. dropped its share prices by 17 percent last week to finish at $32.6 from the $39.42 registered on January 31 as investor sentiment was dampened by false news reports that the pharmaceutical giant manufactured vaccines to fight COVID-19 two years before the pandemic emerged.
An online post claimed that MRNA had manufactured COVID-19 vaccines in 2017. The allegations, however, were immediately debunked by a report from Reuters, saying that data on mRNA vaccines sent by the pharmaceutical giant to European regulators during the period were for early tests of the mRNA platform to treat or prevent diseases such as cancer.
In other news, investors also repositioned their portfolios ahead of the final decision on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as the country’s next health secretary.
What feared investors in particular was Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance, having been a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement over his doubts about vaccines’ safety and efficacy.
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