Social Market Analytics looks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond

This week, Social Market Analytics (SMA) looks at Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY, the operator a chain of 1,180 retail stores, which sell a wide range of domestic merchandise, such as bed linens and related items, bath items, kitchen utensils, home furnishings, housewares, and consumables.  The week of September 18 was a disappointment for Bed Bath & Beyond shareholders as the company reported Q2 earnings of $0.98 per share, compared to analyst’s expectations of $1.02, and established a tepid fiscal third-quarter earnings guidance of $0.99 to $1.04 per share.  Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond fell nearly 10% on September 20 due to the earnings miss and analyst’s concerns regarding undisclosed charges related to the purchases of Cost Plus and Linen Holdings, acquisitions that were completed during the quarter.  During the week, Bed, Bath and Beyond appeared on SMA’s morning Flash Report, which identifies stocks, in the pre-market, with extreme sentiment levels that are likely to trade with high activity during the upcoming session.  On the morning of September 20, our analytics engine identified Bed, Bath and Beyond as a stock with extreme negative sentiment from the universe of stocks tracked by SMA.  SMA’s sentiment metrics provided early indication of negative price trends for Bed, Bath and Beyond as traders integrated the company’s disappointing financial performance and projections.

Beginning on September 17, SMA’s S-Score for BBBY started to exhibit sharp declines.  In the pre-market of September 18, Bed, Bath and Beyond’s S-Score stood at -2.52 (High Negative), a notable swing into negative territory from the positive 1.39 level seen the previous day.  BBBY stock closed the September 18 session at $68.22 for a loss of 3.36%.  The behavior of SMA’s S-Score measures market trading sentiment and can provide actionable signals for upcoming price movement.  The decline in Bed, Bath and Beyond’s S-Score accelerated in the pre-market of September 20 posting a large decrease to -3.97 (Extreme Negative), coincident with a 3-fold increase in its S-Volume metric indicating unusually high social media activity for the stock.  Bed, Bath and Beyond gapped down strong at the open to $64.04, a decline of 6.91%, and continued to sell off during the session to close at $62.08, a loss of 9.75% for the day on high volume.  In the pre-market of September 21, Bed, Bath and Beyond’s S-Score began to rebound, returning to low positive levels.  The stock traded in a tight range, achieving an intraday high of $62.90, but closed trading at $61.57, for a net loss of nearly 14% percent for the week.

Social Media data are noisy and complex.  A single metric is insufficient to understand sentiment behavior over time.  Our S-Factors are a family of metrics, including volatility, trend and volume measures, designed to provide a complete view of the social media signature for each security tracked in SMA’s database.  SMA's processing engine continuously updates our S-Factors, capturing overnight and pre-market sentiment activities. Clients receive sentiment reports, prior to the U.S. market open, and intra-day sentiment estimatesfor tracked stocks, on-demand.   We invite the reader to visit our website; investigate our market sentiment metrics for Bed, Bath and Beyond, other stocks, industry sectors, and market indices; participate in our FAQ forum; and sign up for our Flash Report and Newsletter.