BlackBerry stock hit a fresh 10-year low Monday, a possible sign of weak quarterly earnings.
The stocks current weakness comes as investors brace for the December 20 release of BlackBerry’s third-quarter results. It’s not surprising investors would cut exposure to the stock ahead of next weeks earnings report; a week before BlackBerry was scheduled to release second-quarter results it hit investors will a slew of bad news, triggering a 17% collapse in the stock.
BlackBerry said at the time it would axe about 40% of its staff, write off nearly $1 billion of inventory of its new touch-screen phones and post a loss of up to $995 million.
Based on last quarter’s timing, a third-quarter earnings warning from BlackBerry, if in the cards, could come by the end of this week. Of course, even in the absence of a warning, things aren’t looking completely rosy, analysts currently expect BlackBerry to post a loss of 43 cents a share, according to estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Still, no warning could signal the company’s financial struggles won’t be worse than already anticipated.
BlackBerry’s stock hit an intraday low of $5.74 Monday on Nasdaq is down more than 11% since Mr. Chen’s appointment in early November. Of course that decline could reflect short-term worry over the upcoming earnings release. But it could also signal a lack of faith in Mr. Chen.
That’s a more troubling scenario since failure by Mr. Chen could suggest more fresh 10-year lows likely await already hard-hit investors.
