Shares on Wall Street bounced back from a bloodbath, with all main indices ending in the green on Wednesday, as investors cheered the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the gains, rallying 1.41 percent, followed by the S&P 500 with a 1.08 percent gain, and the Dow Jones, by 0.92 percent.
Meanwhile, 10 companies defied overall market optimism, booking losses during the trading session. In this article, let’s take a look at the 10 worst-performing stocks and explore the reasons behind their drop.
To come up with the list, we considered only the companies with a $2-billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.
A man in a black suit holding a tablet looks at stock market data on a monitor. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
10. Cognex Corp. (NASDAQ:CGNX)
Cognex Corp. saw its share prices drop by 3.49 percent on Wednesday to close at $31.21 apiece as investor caution lingered amid a generally bearish sentiment that pushed the company down to an all-time low last week.
Just recently, 13 analysts lowered their earnings expectations for CGNX as it navigates a challenging market environment.
TD Cowen, for its part, reduced its price target for CGNX by 21 percent to $30 from $38 previously while maintaining a “hold” rating. Meanwhile, DA Davidson lowered its price target to $35 from $39 while keeping a neutral rating.
UBS also adjusted its price target for the company to $56, down from its $58 projected earlier, but assigned a “buy” rating.
Goldman Sachs decreased its target to $35, maintaining a “sell” rating following a mixed earnings performance and a cautious outlook for the first quarter of the year.
9. Rigetti Computing Inc. (NASDAQ:RGTI)
Rigetti Computing fell for a third straight day on Wednesday, losing 3.46 percent to finish at $9.90, in line with its counterparts, as investors repositioned portfolios ahead of Nvidia Corp.’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) much-anticipated Quantum Day.
NVDA is set to hold the Quantum Day on Thursday where industry leaders are expected to join NVDA CEO Jensen Huang in a discussion about the trends in the industry.
It can be recalled that Huang earlier commented that the quantum computing industry is not expected to be very useful in the next 15 to 30 years, a view that was similarly shared by Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In other recent news, RGTI entered into a share purchase agreement with Quanta Computer, involving the latter’s purchase of $35 million RGTI shares at a price of $11.59 apiece.
Following the investment, the two parties would jointly invest $100 million over the next five years for the development of quantum computers.
8. Williams-Sonoma Inc. (NYSE:WSM)
Williams-Sonoma dropped for a second day on Wednesday, losing 3.49 percent to finish at $166.27 each as investors sold off positions following a cautious outlook for its business.
WSM, which operates home furnishing stores such as Pottery Barn, and West Elm, among others, said that it expects full-year revenues to land in the range of plus or minus 1.5 percent, with a flat same-store sales growth (SSSG).
Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts expect sales to grow a bit better, with SSSG of 1.53 percent.
The bearish outlook overshadowed the company’s impressive earnings performance during the last quarter of the year, having booked revenues of $2.46 billion versus the $2.35 billion estimated by analysts.
“We have been, and will continue to be, focused on returning to growth,” said WSM CEO Laura Alber in a statement.
7. KE Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BEKE)
KE Holdings dropped its share prices by 3.52 percent on Wednesday to end at $22.45 each as investors sold off positions following the release of its latest earnings performance.
In a statement, BEKE said net income in the fourth quarter of the year dropped by 13.9 percent to RMB577 million from RMB670 million in the same period a year earlier, despite revenues growing by 55 percent to RMB31 million from RMB20 million.
For the full-year 2024, net income declined by 30.7 percent to RMB4.078 billion from RMB5.889 billion, while revenues increased by 20.8 percent to RMB93 billion from RMB77 billion year-on-year.
Following its earnings, BEKE also declared a cash dividend of $12 per ordinary share or $0.36 per ADS to holders of ordinary shares and holders of ADSs of record date April 9, 2025.
6. The Progressive Corp. (NYSE:PGR)
Progressive Corp. declined for a second straight day on Wednesday, shedding 3.53 percent to end at $273.29 each after an investment firm downgraded its rating for the company.
On Wednesday, Bank of America lowered its price target for the company to $300 from $318 previously, albeit maintaining its “buy” rating on the firm.
Meanwhile, PGR earned a better outlook from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, with a new price target of $300, higher than the $294 previously. It also assigned an “outperform” rating for the company.
The new price target is based on a multiple of 20.8 times the firm’s projected 2026 EPS for the company.
PGR is an American insurance company, which offers various financial services and insurance products on vehicles, property, personal, and businesses.
5. Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU)
Baidu shares dropped by 4.17 percent on Wednesday to close at $98.24 each to mitigate risks following a recent backlash against the company over privacy concerns following an executive’s daughter doxxing incident.
The incident stemmed from a 13-year-old daughter of a BIDU vice president who earned the ire of social media users, accusing her of doxxing incidents that resulted in the disclosure of user’s personal information, including their real names, state-issued ID numbers, phone numbers, and IP addresses.
His father, Xie Guangjun, who is currently vice president of the company, issued an apology, saying he regretted “not teaching his daughter to respect and protect other people’s privacy.”
Recently, Xie’s daughter was accused of taking part in a coordinated online attack against a pregnant woman, which exposed her personal information and hostile messages to her husband.
The woman became a target of harassment after disapproving of the demanding work schedule of a popular K-pop singer, causing the fan circle to retaliate.
4. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC)
Intel Corp. dropped its share prices by 6.94 percent on Wednesday to end at $24.12 apiece as investors turned cautious over the new CEO’s potential move to lay off half of the company’s workforce to save the technology giant from a possible bankruptcy.
Lip-Bu Tan, who took over as INTC’s CEO on Tuesday, met with employees immediately and signaled that tough decisions will be made ahead.
According to reports, part of Tan’s strategic overhaul is likely to push for deeper efficiency improvements, which could result in further job cuts in non-essential departments, and reallocate resources towards AI innovation.
“Together, we will work hard to restore Intel’s position as a world-class products company, establish ourselves as a world-class foundry, and delight our customers like never before,” Tan said to Intel employees.
3. VNET Group Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET)
VNET Group saw its share prices decline by 9.96 percent on Wednesday to end at $9.85 apiece as investors sold off positions amid the lack of catalysts to spark buying appetite.
The drop came despite the company’s upgraded rating and price target from an investment firm.
On Monday, Bank of America raised its price target for VNET to $17.30 from $14.50 previously, representing a 75.6-percent upside from its closing price on Wednesday. It also maintained a “buy” rating on the company.
The more optimistic outlook was based on the company’s much higher guidance on capacity delivery targets, now between 400 to 450 MW as compared with the 153MW actual delivery in 2024.
In its latest earnings release, VNET said it narrowed its fourth-quarter net loss attributable to the company by 99 percent to RMB11.1 million from RMB2.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, as net revenues increased by RMB2.246 billion from RMB1.898 billion.
Meanwhile, it swung to a net income of RMB183 million in full-year 2024 from a RMB2.6 billion net loss a year earlier, as revenues grew by 42 percent to RMB1.832 billion from RMB1.292 billion.
2. GDS Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ:GDS)
GDS Holdings snapped a three-day winning streak on Wednesday, losing 13.97 percent to close at $30.61 each as investors soured on the company’s missed revenue estimates during the last quarter.
In its latest earnings release, GDS reported first-quarter earnings per share of -Y1.89, better than the -Y3.04 as expected by analysts.
The drop showed investors shunning the company’s impressive earnings performance, with the GDS swinging to a net income attributable to shareholders of RMB4.19 billion from a RMB3.16 billion net loss in the fourth quarter of 2024, as revenues grew 9.34 percent to RMB2.69 billion from RMB2.46 billion.
Meanwhile, net income attributable to shareholders for the full year of 2024 stood at RMB3.4 billion, reversing a net loss of RMB4.29 billion year-on-year, as revenues increased 5.3 percent to RMB10.3 billion from RMB9.78 billion.
1. HealthEquity Inc. (NASDAQ:HQY)
HealthEquity fell by 17.07 percent on Wednesday to end at $84.32 each after missing earnings estimates in its latest earnings performance.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, HQY reported earnings per share of 69 cents, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.82 percent. The bottom line, however, improved 9.5 percent on a year-on-year basis.
Revenues, on the other hand, came in at $311.8 million, higher by 18.8 percent year-on-year, and beating Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.2 percent.
For fiscal year 2026, HQY said it expected revenues to settle between $1.28 billion and $1.30 billion. Adjusted EPS, meanwhile, is expected to settle between $3.57 to $3.74.
While we acknowledge the potential of HQY as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as HQY but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
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