Weight Watchers Down 40% This Year

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

So much for Oprah — losing weight or not. After a sharp spike up when Oprah Winfrey announced her affiliation with Weight Watchers International Inc. (NYSE: WTW), the company’s shares have sold off 40% this year to just below $13. Apparently, famous endorsers only do so much for a stock if the perception is that the broad public cares little about the company’s products.

Weight Watchers shares reached $27 in late November of last year. Since then, it announced that revenue dropped 20% last year to $282 million. Net income has fallen 72% to $33 million.

When Weight Watchers reported its fourth-quarter results, it put guidance for 2016 with earnings in a range of $0.70 to $1.00. The thin crowd of analysts following the stock had the consensus at $0.81 EPS at the time, though that has crept up by two cents since then. The outlook was specified as being after incorporating the increased share count due the prior equity investment in the company by Oprah Winfrey and a related option grant.
[nativounit]
But note that more than a third of Weight Watchers shares were held short as of the most recent settlement date. Those 20 million shares were the highest level of short interest in the past year.

Oprah endorses the Weight Watchers product on the home page of its website. Apparently, the star has lost her power, at least among people who want to lose pounds.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618