Friday gave investors another roller-coaster ride, as Wall Street initially went into a near-panic over the U.S. imposing new tariffs against China but later got its confidence back. Major benchmarks finished the session with solid gains, and market participants seem to have taken the losses from earlier in the week in stride thus far. However, bad news for some companies kept their shares from recovering from big drops. Yelp (YELP 0.60%), Symantec (GEN 0.72%), and TiVo (TIVO) were among the worst performers. Here's why they did so poorly.
Yelp gets disappointing reviews
Shares of Yelp dropped more than 14% after the online review specialist reported its first-quarter financial results. At first glance, Yelp's results didn't look all that bad, with revenue rising 6% from year-ago levels and with the company eking out a small profit to reverse a loss in last year's Q1. However, investors didn't seem pleased with the projections that Yelp made for the second quarter, as they imply that the company will have to make a dramatic recovery in the second half of 2019 in order to keep up with its full-year guidance. That's not impossible, but it was more than investors were willing to assume would be possible, explaining the stock's downward move.
Image source: Yelp.
Symantec looks less secure
Symantec's stock fell 12.5% following the departure of the cybersecurity specialist's CEO and the release of relatively poor financial results. Symantec said that revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter dropped almost 2%, sending adjusted net income down by about 14% from year-ago levels. The company pointed to its enterprise security segment as the primary cause of its sluggish performance, as bookings volume was lower than expected. In addition, CEO Greg Clark stepped down effective immediately, and Richard Hill will act as interim CEO until a search process finds a permanent successor. That uncertainty, combined with relatively weak revenue guidance for the coming year, could keep the pressure on Symantec for the near future.
TiVo's picture gets blurry
Finally, shares of TiVo finished lower by 14%. The entertainment technology specialist released first-quarter financial results that included a 17% drop in overall revenue and an 11% decline in core sales, as well as a 45% plunge in adjusted pre-tax income. Yet the thing that investors seemed to find most objectionable was TiVo's plans to split itself into two separate businesses, one focusing on products and the other concentrating on opportunities in intellectual property licensing. After having spent considerable effort trying to figure out how to handle its two primary divisions, TiVo shareholders didn't seem satisfied with the proposed strategic move and perhaps would have preferred a straight acquisition of all or part of TiVo's business.
