WWE stock just sunk more than $10 per share, literally overnight. Talk about a rough bump.
Shares of the New York Stock Exchange-traded WWE declined more than 10 percent this morning on weaker-than-expected first-quarter financials. For starters, the pro-wrestling company lost 11 cents per share, which was worse than the $0.02 loss that Wall Street had collectively forecast.
With ticket sales down double digits, quarterly revenues also missed the mark by a fairly wide margin.
Below a snapshot of how WWE stock sunk from yesterday’s close to this morning’s open, when Q1 earnings were out.
This writer already pointed out some of the highlights and lowlights (mostly low) from the quarter on Twitter. Since Monday was Earth Day, let’s recycle, shall we?
See below:
https://twitter.com/TonyMaglio/status/1121400956925747200
https://twitter.com/TonyMaglio/status/1121399523115503618
https://twitter.com/TonyMaglio/status/1121400616620830720
https://twitter.com/TonyMaglio/status/1121401649308872704
Vince McMahon believes the tough quarter was due in part to wrestler absences.
“During the quarter, we continued to execute our strategy and achieved targeted financial results,” the company chairman and CEO said in prepared remarks accompanying WWE’s Q1 financials. “While engagement metrics over the past two quarters were impacted by Superstar absences, we believe they will improve as our talent return and we launch our new season following a successful WrestleMania. We remain excited about the future, particularly with our debut on Fox in October.”
“In the quarter, we delivered Adjusted OIBDA within the range of our public guidance and continue to target full-year record revenue of approximately $1 billion and record Adjusted OIBDA of at least $200 million,” company Co-President George Barrios added. “Our primary focus is to deliver record results while investing in our key priorities: content creation, localization and digitization.”
McMahon, Barrios and other executives will host a conference call for media analysts and reporters at 11 a.m. ET Thursday.
WWE’s marquee pay-per-view event, WrestleMania, took place early in the second quarter of 2019.