5 of Last Week's Biggest Losers

Updated

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

June 14

Weekly Loss

Himax Technologies

$5.39

21%

lululemon athletica

$66.15

19%

First Solar

$44.71

16%

McEwen Mining

$2.10

14%

Liquidity Services

$31.09

11%

Source: Barron's.

Let's start with Himax. Shares of the maker of display chips lost more than a fifth of their value after a large shareholder moved to sell more than 22 million shares in a secondary offering. Unlike most secondary offerings, the Innolux sale wasn't dilutive. There were no new shares issued in the transaction. However, investors don't like to see a significant investor bail this way. It makes them wonder if they should stick around.


Yoga is about inner peace, but that wasn't the case for Lululemon this past week. The yoga-apparel retailer took a hit after CEO Christine Day stunned investors by announcing her resignation. Day had led the upscale chain through heady growth in her five-year tenure, and now investors have to worry about why she left and who will be brought in to replace her.

First Solar dimmed after raising more money in the form of a secondary offering of 8.5 million shares. Despite having one of the finest balance sheets in the solar industry -- armed with $1.3 billion in greenery and less than half that much in long-term debt -- First Solar has some big capital-intensive projects in California and Arizona going up at the moment. The silver lining is that the stock fell by more than the actual dilution, making this better than a free lunch to new investors buying in after the drop.

McEwen Mining was also fool's gold for investors. The Canadian gold miner lowered its forecast for 2016 production from the equivalent of 290,000 ounces of gold to just 225,000 ounces. Lower metal prices and higher capital costs factored into the decision that will help save the company money at the expense of lost revenue.

Shares of Liquidity Services tumbled 12% two weeks ago after posting disappointing gross merchandise volume for May. The negativity carried over into this past week, triggering another double-digit percentage decline. On Monday, Benchmark cut its price target to $47. Since October, we've seen Benchmark talk down its goal on the marketplace operator from $73 to $62 to $52 before Monday's latest haircut to $47.

Ready for a bounce
If you owned some of these losers, how about following the smart money into winners?

With so much of the financial industry getting bad press these days, it may time to get greedy when others are fearful. Not surprisingly, some of Warren Buffett's biggest investments are in the space. In The Motley Fool's free report "The Stocks Only the Smartest Investors Are Buying," you can learn about a small, under-the-radar bank that's too tiny for Buffett's billions. Too bad for Buffett, because it has better operating metrics than his favorites. Just click here to keep reading.

The article 5 of Last Week's Biggest Losers originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Liquidity Services and lululemon athletica. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Advertisement