What happened
Last month, shares of Just Energy (JE) collapsed 28% in a day after the company announced it was suspending its dividend "until further notice." This contributed to a slide that's seen nearly half the value of Just Energy stock erased over the past year.
Today, the stock is down another 8.6% as of 12:25 p.m. EDT. So what's the bad news this time?
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Surprise! There is none!
No new bad news, at least. But that's still not necessarily good news for investors, because even the old news about this company is pretty disheartening.
If you scroll through the news feed at Yahoo! Finance, you'll find that pretty much every item for the last week is an announcement of one law firm or another launching a class action lawsuit against Just Energy or reminding shareholders to sign onto a lawsuit already filed. Most of these law firms allege something along the lines of Just Energy having defrauded investors by failing to disclose "material adverse facts about Just Energy's business" such as "customer enrollment and nonpayment issues," "impairment charge[s] to ... accounts receivable," and/or inadequate "internal control over its financial reporting.".
Now what
What inference are shareholders to draw from such allegations, other than that Just Energy is a mess and the stock is not worth buying? And if it's not worth buying, then maybe it's time to start selling?
Such negative sentiments can be self-fulfilling, and until Just Energy says something encouraging to change the narrative -- offers proof that sales are growing again, that it's got its marketing costs under control, and that it won't be losing any more money -- I expect Just Energy shareholders will see more "down" days than "up." Just Energy's next chance to make such an announcement will come when fiscal Q3 2020 earnings arrive, two months from now.
I expect it will feel like a long two months for the company's shareholders.
