These 2 Stocks Were Monday's Big Disappointments

The stock market proved its resilience on Monday, bouncing back from losses earlier in the session to finish with modest gains. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 2.12%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.54%), and S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.19%) all finished higher by about a third of a percent.

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

Despite the strong market, though, there were some disappointments for shareholders in some individual stocks. In particular, Roblox (RBLX 1.56%) and Moderna (MRNA 1.47%) saw substantial losses on the day. Below, you'll learn more about what happened with both companies and why their investors aren't pleased with what they see ahead.

Roblox deals with a drop in traffic

Shares of Roblox finished lower by 12% on Monday. The global metaverse experience platform provider released key metrics for the month of March, and investors weren't happy with the trends they saw in Roblox's numbers.

On their face, Roblox's user metrics seemed to show healthy growth. Daily active user counts rose to 66.2 million, which was 26% higher than in March 2022. Hours engaged showed similar growth of 26% year over year to 4.8 billion hours. Revenue estimates of $212 million to $223 million were 15% to 21% higher than in the year-earlier period, and total bookings were up an even stronger 23% to 27% to between $247 million and $255 million.

The problem, though, is that some shorter-term trends suggested that Roblox might have reached a plateau in its growth trajectory. Daily active users were actually down by 1.1 million compared to February 2023. Moreover, average bookings per user were little changed at between $3.73 and $3.85, which would represent somewhere between a 2% drop and a 1% gain compared to year-earlier figures.

Interestingly, Roblox has chosen not to continue to release these monthly figures going forward. That will take some of the short-term focus off the company, but some investors might not react well to the idea that Roblox is choosing to make less disclosure of financial information rather than more.

Moderna tries to chart a course forward

Shares of Moderna dropped 8% on Monday. The vaccine maker released data on a cancer therapy that it believes could represent a good prospect for diversifying its business, but investors seemed to have a less positive picture of what the studies showed.

On Sunday, Moderna and partner Merck (MRK 0.55%) released results from their phase 2b Keynote trial evaluating the mRNA-4157 investigational therapy for melanoma patients. The  trial incorporated the use of mRNA-4157 in combination with Merck's already approved Keytruda, and the study showed statistically significant improvements in recurrence-free survival rates. Moreover, the risk of recurrence or death was 44% less in patients receiving the combination treatment compared to those receiving only Keytruda.

However, several stock analysts noted that many investors had already anticipated that results from the study would be positive, and the actual data didn't hold any particularly strong surprises in either direction. As a result, some Wall Street pros suggested that it could take a long time for the melanoma treatment to come to market, delaying new sources of revenue for Moderna.

Moderna is seeing its boom times come to an end as demand for products related to COVID-19 continues to wane. Investors hope that the mRNA specialist will come up with new paths to success, but they're increasingly impatient to see results that can produce revenue and profit sooner rather than later.