What happened
Opera (OPRA -1.91%) stock sank in Friday's trading. The search and web-service specialist's share price ended the day down 13.6%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Opera published filings indicating that it was moving forward facilitating a secondary public offering that would see roughly 6.88 million American depositary shares (ADSs) sold by a shareholder that had owned a stake in the company since before its initial public offering (IPO). Investors seem to worry about one of the company's early backers reducing their position.
So what
In addition to facilitating the stock sale, Opera granted the underwriting purchaser in the deal the option to purchase more than one million additional ADSs after the closing of the secondary offering. With a large number of shares potentially on track to hit the market, investors became worried about Opera's short-term performance outlook.
Now what
Even with today's pullback, Opera stock is still up roughly 79% year to date. The company is now valued at approximately 15 times this year's expected-adjusted earnings and 2.6 times expected-forward sales.
OPRA PS Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Opera has been attracting interest this year following a focus on gaming-oriented services and artificial intelligence integrations. The company has also been posting encouraging business performance lately.
Even in the face of small declines for its active user base, Opera has managed to post encouraging sales growth. The company's revenue climbed 21% year over year to reach $94.1 million in the second quarter, and continued business momentum could help the stock bounce back from recent sell-offs.
