What happened
One of the worst events a publicly traded company can experience is the delisting of its stock. This has lately become a worrying possibility with the shares of robotics company Berkshire Grey (BGRY); as a result, the stock's price cratered by 17% this week, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
So what
Berkshire Grey disclosed in a regulatory filing that it had received formal notice from the Nasdaq exchange, on which its stock is traded, that it was not in compliance with the exchange's minimum listing price requirement. This was triggered by the company's shares recently trading for less than $1 apiece for 30 trading days in a row.
As per its rules, Nasdaq is giving Berkshire Gray until July 10 to regain compliance with the requirement.
The robotics specialist wrote in the document that it is mulling all possible ways it can do so. It added a caveat, however, stating that "there can be no assurance that the company will be able to regain compliance with the rule or will otherwise be in compliance with other Nasdaq listing criteria." Judging by the market's reaction, this was clearly not reassuring to worried investors.
Now what
In some ways, Berkshire Grey is a victim of the tech stock sell-off spanning the past few months. Since it's a robotics company, some lump it into that troubled sector, which has suffered from the migration away from relatively high-risk stocks to assets considered safer. That's due in no small part to macroeconomic worries over factors such as inflation and slowing growth.