Shopify tumbles below pre-COVID levels after huge profit miss
BNN Bloomberg
Shopify shares plunged below their pre-pandemic level after the company missed revenue and profit estimates, prompting some analysts to dramatically change their outlook on the e-commerce company.
Shopify Inc. shares plunged below their pre-pandemic level after the company missed revenue and profit estimates, prompting some analysts to dramatically change their outlook on the Canadian e-commerce company.
Shopify fell 14.7 per cent to US$413.64 in New York, bringing this year’s decline to 70 per cent. The stock is now 2 per cent below where it closed on the day in March 2020 that the World Health Organization called COVID-19 a global pandemic.
COVID lockdowns triggered a rally in e-commerce shares as businesses moved to sell goods online, pushing Shopify’s market capitalization as high as US$212 billion and making it Canada’s most valuable company.
E-commerce stocks have been pummeled this earnings season on concerns that online shopping is slowing as the COVID-19 pandemic fades. Amazon.com Inc. suffered the biggest one-day drop since July 2006 after it reported a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast. Wayfair, Etsy and EBay all dropped on Thursday.
Ottawa-based Shopify earned 20 cents per share on an adjusted basis in the first quarter, far short of analyst calls for 64 cents. The company gave a weaker outlook for adding new business customers in 2022, saying growth in merchants on its platform would be “comparable” to 2021.
