Avon shares fall on analysts’ downgrade
The company’s share price fell to the new low of $8.55 on Tuesday to close the day’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $8.61.
Just before Christmas, BMO Capital made the boldest statement, downgrading the stock to ‘underperform’ from ‘market perform, while also lowering its price target from $10 to $7.
Investment world gets the jitters
Meanwhile, Citigroup maintained its ‘neutral’ rating but lowered its price target from $11 to $10, while Piper Jaffrey started coverage of the company with a neutral rating and a $9 price target and Bank of America cut its price target for the company from $12 to $11.
One analyst has rated the stock as a sell, while eight have given a hold rating and three have assigned it with a buy rating, according to the most recent analysts’ poll from Thomson Reuters.
The company also has a consensus rating of ‘hold’ and a consensus target price of $13.32.
Avon’s revenues cause for concern
For its most recent third quarter, the company turned a loss in the corresponding period last year into a profit, but revenues slipped significantly.
The company made progress in its turnaround bid by posting third quarter net income attributable to the company of $91.4 million, versus a loss of $5.5 million a year earlier.
But the company battled adverse currency translations, posting a total revenue of $2.1 billion for the third quarter, an 8% decrease, but an increase of 1% in constant dollars. Beauty sales declined 9%, but increased 1% in constant dollars.
"We began the year with the expectation that the second half of 2014 would show improvement relative to the first half and Avon's third-quarter results are consistent with modest improvement on both top and bottom line," said Sheri McCoy, Chief Executive Officer of Avon Products.
