Bed Bath & Beyond 'will be gone' by this time next year, analyst says
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) may not live to see another holiday season, warned one of its most vocal Wall Street critics.
"All you need to know is that they're just simply not relevant anymore," Anthony Chukumba, analyst at Loop Capital, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "And this really was Custer's Last Stand. It's going to pretty much end up the same way that it did for Custer. We will not be having this same conversation a year from now about Bed Bath & Beyond. Bed Bath & Beyond will be gone."
Bed Bath & Beyond spokesperson Julie Strider didn't return Yahoo Finance's request for comment on Chukumba's hot take.
To be sure, not many on Wall Street would be shocked if the 2022 holiday season were to be Bed Bath & Beyond's last.
The retailer has battled all year long with tanking sales, weak store traffic, low cash levels, and merchandise not aligned with customer tastes. Earlier this year, the board ousted Bed Bath & Beyond's turnaround CEO Mark Tritton. Other execs have also fled as cash-saving, cost-cutting efforts are underway.
Furthermore, new CEO Sue Gove hasn't been able to revive the company, which has been heavily discounting products this holiday season in an effort to raise badly needed cash.
Comparable store sales crashed 26% from a year prior in the fiscal second quarter as the economic slowdown and poor inventory quality weighed on store traffic. The challenged top line and increased discounting led to the company posting an operating loss of $168 million in the quarter.
Not helping sentiment is that Bed Bath & Beyond may have had a very ugly holiday shopping season as it continues to battle execution issues and more cautious shoppers.
U.S. web traffic for Bed Bath & Beyond dropped a startling 19% in November, according to new research from Jefferies analyst Jonathan Matuszewski. The declines worsened from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday with a drop of about 25% versus the prior year.
Meanwhile, Bed Bath & Beyond stock has plunged 83% in 2022, badly underperforming the S&P 500's 20% drop.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
Click here for the latest trending stock tickers of the Yahoo Finance platform
Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube
