As the trading week kicked off on Monday, the market wasn't feeling the power of SunPower (SPWR 5.85%) stock. Shares of the solar company fell by more than 6%, due in no small part to a continuing series of analyst price target cuts. Investors would have been better off putting their money in blue chips that day, as the S&P 500 index ended in positive territory with a 0.2% gain.
The analyst price target cuts just keep coming for SunPower
November has been unkind to SunPower stockholders. The month started with the solar company posting a double miss on its third-quarter earnings. Following that, analysts reacted in the way they often do when a stock doesn't hit its numbers -- they lowered their price targets.
On Monday, yet another prognosticator joined the ranks of the cutters.
Truist Financial's Truist Securities, in the person of Bronson Fleig, cut its fair value estimation to $5 per share from the preceding $6. Fleig isn't ready to fully abandon SunPower entirely, though; he maintained his hold recommendation on the shares.
Joining a large crowd
In reducing his price target, the Truist pundit joins peers at such prominent institutions as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, all of which made similar moves following the third-quarter earnings publication.
It isn't only the trailing double miss that has both investors and analysts concerned. SunPower significantly lowered its fourth-quarter guidance for adjusted non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). That's perhaps an understatement, as the company's new forecast is for a loss of $25 million to $35 million, against the previous projection of a $55 million to $75 million profit.
