The shares were off on Tuesday, but the stock has still more than doubled in the past month.
Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond (ticker: BBBY) have been all the buzz. Between June 29 and Aug. 17, the price rose about 360%—pushed up by retail investors who ignored the recommendation of most analysts: sell. Only a few days later, activist investor Ryan Cohen sold his entire stake in Bed Bath & Beyond, and the stock tumbled.
But on Monday, while the S&P 500 was down 0.3%, the stock was 30% higher, at $13.92, rising in response to news that the chain is in talks with asset manager Sixth Street Partners to secure a $400 million loan. The latest surge means the stock has jumped 211% from its 52-week closing low on July 6.
The stock was taking a breather Tuesday, falling 5% to $12.68. Yet that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had a great end-of-summer run. In August, Bed Bath has surged more than 120%, putting it on track to notch a record month.
Wednesday’s business update from the retailer, which sells everything from bathroom décor to coffee pots, will come before markets open.
Seth Basham, an analyst at Wedbush, expects the company will provide an update “on its balance sheet outlook (including recently acquired financing), demand trends, and progress on ongoing cost saving initiatives.”
The possible financing comes after Bed Bath burned through more than $300 million in cash and borrowed $200 million during its fiscal first quarter.
“We believe that the incremental financing should ease near-term concerns among suppliers and help restore inventory receivables financing that had reportedly become difficult to source for some vendors ahead of the key holiday period,” the analyst wrote.
Basham said the additional capital could “significantly decrease short-term liquidity risk and buy the company more time to address its bloated inventories, cost structure and market share losses.”
However, Basham is still bearish, as are most Wall Street analysts. He rates the stock as Underperform with a $5 price target. Of the 18 analysts tracked by FactSet, 67% rate the stock at Sell, 28% say it is a Hold, and 6% recommend buying shares.
“Even in a soft demand environment, Bed Bath & Beyond’s market share losses are untenable and create risk into 2023 if Bed Bath & Beyond cannot improve its value proposition to customers,” Basham wrote.
He added that the company’s operational and balance-sheet challenges leave him cautious and that he believes the “current risk/reward still remains disproportionately skewed to the downside.”
That’s not surprising given how far Bed Bath’s shares have run. As with other meme stocks, the company’s fundamentals have had little to do with the stock’s performance.
Despite the stock’s surge, it’s still down about 16% since the start of the year, hurt by downbeat earnings and the departure of its CEO, whom bulls had hoped would lead the company’s turnaround.
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