What happened
Shares of rental car company Hertz (HTZG.Q) fell as much as 11.7% on Thursday after analysts at Morgan Stanley cut its price target for the stock from $15 to $12. Shares closed the trading day down about 11.4%.
So what
Hertz's decline on Thursday continues a bearish run for the stock recently, driven largely by the company's worse-than-expected loss in its first quarter as CEO Kathryn Marinello aims to execute on a turnaround plan.
Image source: Hertz.
Morgan Stanley cited "unprecedented" fleet costs as one of the reasons for the lowered price target. Marinello acknowledged in the company's first-quarter earnings release that "headwinds related to used car residual values" were a problem for the company.
First-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings per share in Hertz's first quarter was $1.35 billion and a loss of $1.61, down from revenue of $1.41 billion and a loss of $0.79 in the same period last year, respectively.
Now what
Marinello is only in the early stages of the company's turnaround plans. She warned investors in the first-quarter earnings release that Hertz performance "doesn't yet reflect our investments and may continue to be uneven, we are seeing signs of progress."
