Barclays downgrades Beyond Meat by 69% as firm misses earnings

After the market had closed on May 11, Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND) disclosed its most recent earnings report. On the following day, May 12, the company’s shares dropped by 24.34 percent during the premarket session as the reported data did not meet investors’ expectations.

Earnings per share (EPS) was missed by $0.60 with revenue rising ‘only’ 1.2% year-on-year (YoY). The company has had $109.45 million in revenue for the entire quarter with a net loss of $100.5 million.  

On top of that, Barclay’s (NYSE: BCS) downgraded BYND citing worries that the company might struggle to return to profitability in the near term, cutting the actual price target by 69%.

Full-year guidance was reaffirmed by BYND but it may still come under the expectations on Wall Street. Despite taking a pummeling in the premarket the shares recovered 20% of their loss in yesterday’s session to signal that the market may have overreacted. 

Chart and expectations 

Since August 2021 the shares have been slowly pushing downwards creating a downward momentum in the stock. Despite increased buying volumes on May 12, which enabled the stock to remove most of the losses after Barclay’s downgraded it. It is still trading below all daily Simple Moving Averages. 

Elsewhere, analysts seem to be bailing on the stock giving it a moderate sell rating with none of the analysts giving the company a buy rating. Still, the average next 12-month price they see for the stock at $31.55 is 25.80% higher than the current trading price of $25.08.  

The most bullish analysts predict that the price in the next 12 months could reach $50, yet, there might be more revisions to the price targets.

Since its IPO in May 2019 the shares have lost 62% and are a good lesson on why getting in on unproven IPOs may be risky for investors. Only time will tell if the company manages to crawl back to profitability and turn the negative sentiment around. 

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