Investors have been nervous about threats to regional banks, but Washington appears to be doing its best to restore confidence. With vows to keep the financial system strong, Wall Street responded favorably, with the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.97%) rising more than half a percent as of 11 a.m. ET.
Unfortunately, some companies weren't able to participate in the broader market's rally. First Majestic Silver (AG 2.21%) was the morning's big stock loser, as investors reacted negatively to alarming news from the silver and gold mining company. Meanwhile, shares of Huya (HUYA 1.02%) also moved lower after the Chinese-based company released its latest financial results. Read on to get more details about both companies and why their stocks aren't rising along with the rest of the market.
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Big challenges at First Majestic
Shares of First Majestic plunged 24% on Tuesday morning. The precious metals mining specialist resorted to drastic measures in order to address significant financial challenges, and shareholders in the silver stock seemed concerned about what that means for First Majestic's future.
First Majestic announced that it would temporarily suspend all of its mining activities at its Jerritt Canyon mine in Nevada. That included a reduction in workforce at the mining property, with changes taking effect immediately.
The company said that it has spent the better part of two years trying to conduct underground mining operations more effectively at the Jerritt Canyon site. However, despite working hard to try to generate at least 3,000 tons of material per day to feed through its processing plant, First Majestic hasn't been able to get enough throughput to bring its cash costs per ounce down to anticipated levels. Without that level of volume, the free cash flow that First Majestic needs hasn't been available.
First Majestic also pointed to high labor costs, inefficiencies among contractors, inflation, lower yields of precious metals per ton of material processed, and the adverse weather conditions that have hit Nevada all winter long.
First Majestic also has other properties, mostly in Mexico. However, Jerritt Canyon brought in more than 20% of revenue in 2022, and so it'll be a big hit once the miner runs through the remaining pay dirt awaiting processing.
Huya loses ground
Shares of Huya also performed poorly, dropping 17% late Tuesday morning. The video game livestreaming platform provider reported fourth-quarter financial results that didn't inspire confidence among its shareholders.
Huya's fourth-quarter numbers showed the challenges that the company is facing. Revenue fell by about 25% year over year to $305 million. Adjusted losses widened from year-ago levels as well, weighing in at $63.8 million.
Fundamentally, Huya saw tepid demand for its streaming services. Average mobile monthly active user counts inched higher to 85.5 million, up by just 100,000 over the past 12 months. Even worse, the total number of paying users for the Huya Live service actually dropped by 100,000 to 5.5 million.
Huya said that macroeconomic pressures were largely to blame for its financial results. However, the company remains confident that it's doing what it needs to do in order to sustain its promising long-term prospects for growth. In addition, Huya will take further measures in order to control costs and boost operational efficiency, with the goal of making it through tough times and focusing more on its best opportunities for sustainable expansion in the future.
Huya often trades in tandem with other Chinese stocks based on political issues that are only tangentially related to its actual business. That can bring good chances to invest, but Huya does have to get its internal operations in order if it wants to justify further investment from shareholders.
