What happened
Fuel-cell stock Bloom Energy (BE 6.33%) fell hard on Friday, down 9.5% as of 3:25 p.m. EDT. The question is: Why -- and why now?
So what
Bloom Energy's first-quarter earnings news wasn't great. Pro forma losses came in three times bigger than expected, at $0.76 per share, and gross margins were nearly cut in half. But the news wasn't particularly "new." Bloom reported those Q1 2019 losses 10 days ago, and investors have had plenty of time to react since then.
Really, the only new news we've seen today is a series of insider "purchases" reported by StreetInsider.com, which notes that board members Eddie Zervigon, John Chambers, and Colin Powell (yes, that Colin Powell) each acquired 12,734 shares of Bloom Energy stock on May 15. Ordinarily, this would appear to be good news. But as the acquisition price paid for these shares was zero in each case, these appear to be stock grants to the board members in compensation for their service, and thus not indicative of any particular confidence company insiders are expressing in Bloom's prospects.
Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
Still, if you ask me, this news, too, is of the "no news" variety. If stock grants to board members aren't exactly good news, neither are they bad news -- certainly not bad enough to justify a near-10% sell-off in Bloom Energy stock.
If you're among the shareholders who thought Bloom Energy stock was worth $14 or thereabouts back on earnings day, there's really very little reason to think it's worth nearly $3 less than that today. Sometimes, stocks really do go down for no reason at all.
