Why Are Investors Fleeing From These 5 Stocks Today?

The trading week is on the verge of ending on a very sour note for five companies, all of which are getting clobbered in early afternoon trading today. Let’s take a look at the catalysts which are driving these stocks into the ground and whether the declines appear justified or not.

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Let’s start with Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), down by 32.93% today after the music streaming service released its third quarter results after the markets closed yesterday. Despite revenue only marginally missing estimates and earnings being in-line with expectations, shares plunged by over 20% after-hours and only worsened from there. While Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) CEO Brian McAndrews sounded positive about the company’s results for the quarter, expressing that it weathered the entrance of major new competitor Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) into the industry very well, investors don’t appear to agree. It doesn’t help that Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) lowered its full year guidance and that its fourth quarter guidance came in below analysts’ projections. Pandora also reported that it reached a $90 million settlement with labels represented by the Recording Industry Association of America over its past use of pre-1972 music, royalties for the use of which Pandora stopped paying years ago. The news is not good for Richard Gerson and Navroz D. Udwadia‘s Falcon Edge Capital, which bumped its position in Pandora up to 11.62 million shares in September.

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Stericycle Inc (NASDAQ:SRCL)’s third quarter results didn’t impress the market either, as evidenced by its 21.84% loss today. The waste management company’s earnings took a big hit, plunging by just over 50% year-over-year to $0.47, and though its revenue was up by 7.6% to $718.6 million, that figure also came short of estimates. The earnings led to two analysts slashing their price targets on the stock, with Robert Baird downgrading the stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ and cutting its price target on it to $130 from $145, while RBC Capital Market slashed their price target on shares of Stericycle Inc (NASDAQ:SRCL) by $25 to $122. Elite investors in our database were not keen on Stericycle Inc (NASDAQ:SRCL) as of June 30, owning just 1.10% of its common shares.

Shares of Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) have declined by 12.96% today after the maker of 3D printers warned that its third quarter results would miss the mark and that it would take a goodwill impairment charge to write down the value of its MakerBot unit. Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) is now projecting third quarter revenue of $166 million-to-$168 million and non-GAAP earnings between a loss of $0.03 per share and a profit of $0.02 per share. Both projections are well off Wall Street’s predictions of $0.08 profit per share on $184.6 million in revenue. Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) is now down by over 67% year-to-date, and becoming more attractive to a potential acquirer like Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), which is poised to make a big entry into the 3D printing market next year. Several investors that we track were quite bullish on Stratasys in the second quarter as its valuation began to slide. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management opened a position of just under 2.40 million shares during the period, while Chilton Investment Company hiked its stake by 3,483% to 1.28 million shares.

A discussion of two more of the day’s worst performing stocks can be found on the following page.

Westmoreland Coal Company (NASDAQ:WLB) is down by 28.73% today, pushing its slide to 73.71% this year as coal stocks seem unable to hit the floor. Westmoreland Coal Company (NASDAQ:WLB) posted a head-turning loss of $2.95 per share, vastly worse than the $0.38 per share loss that analysts were anticipating, while revenue was $40 million short of expectations at $348 million. The acquisition of Buckingham Coal and Oxford Resource Partners this year added a hefty debt burden to Westmoreland Coal Company (NASDAQ:WLB) that seems ill-advised in hindsight, as the company paid $5.6 million in interest payments during the quarter. Despite that, CEO Keith E. Alessi, who will step down at the end of the year, said that Westmoreland Coal Company (NASDAQ:WLB) was continuing to consider acquisitions, several of which it passed up on during the quarter. Hedge funds in our database owned 35.90% of the coal company’s shares as of June 30, showing a good deal of bullishness for the stock at its depressed price.

Finally, Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK) is down by 10.50% today, the second such plunge for the stock this month after it lost over 7% on October 13 following the announcement of its Qlik Proactive Support service. Today’s fall comes on the back of a third quarter revenue miss for the data visualization software company, which reported revenue of $141.2 million. However, Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK) took a big hit from foreign exchange fluctuations, as the firm currently does a lot of business in Europe. More worrying to investors than the revenue seems to be the mild growth in licence revenue, which was up by just 3% year-over-year, though that too was impacted by currency fluctuations, having increased by 15% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Given the currency impediment, the sell-off of Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK) today appears to be an overreaction by the market.

Disclosure: None