Bill Ackman's nightmare stock is getting kicked around again

pulse

March 3, 2017 8:52 PM

There could be a million reasons, take your pick.

What more does the market want from Valeant Pharmaceuticals?

The stock fell over 5% during Friday's trading day. The news of the day, though, was that the company had completed a $1.3 billion asset sale to L'Oreal, something investors were clamoring for during the company's earnings call on Tuesday, as Valeant is holding around $30 billion in debt and could use the cash from some asset sales.

So, it's interesting that despite making a move that investors were looking for, the company is still getting punished.

It's generally been a rough week for Valeant.

On Tuesday, the embattled company beat earnings expectations narrowly, but still fell 14%.

Then on Wednesday, the stock fell around 5% with the release of its 10K and erroneous reports that an ongoing SEC insider trading investigation was new.

In other words, it currently takes very little to push down a stock that was once a darling of Wall Street. Valeant was a hedge fund parking lot that could claim billionaire Bill Ackman of Pershing Square as its number one cheerleader until October of 2015.

That's when accusations of accounting malfeasance from short sellers and government scrutiny over the company's drug pricing practices made it the poster child for America's anger at the pharmaceutical industry. One CEO, several Congressional hearings, and many investigations and lawsuits later, its stock price now hovers around $13, down from a high of around $257.

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