The Market's Delayed Reaction To Delta's Power Outage

Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL shareholders woke up on Monday morning to the type of news that an airline investor never wants to hear. Delta was forced to cancel more than 1,000 flights on Monday and another 1,000 flights throughout the week after a massive system outage.

Surprisingly, the market has had a somewhat delayed reaction to the disastrous news and PR nightmare.

On Monday, the stock briefly traded up as high as $38.03 before finishing the day down only 0.6 percent. On Tuesday, the modest decline continued as the stock dropped another 0.7 percent. Wednesday, the decline picked up some steam, and Delta shares dropped 1.8 percent to as low as $36.24.

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The stock seemed to stabilize on Thursday with a 0.6 percent gain, but Delta has already given up all of Thursday’s gains with another 0.5 percent decline on Friday morning.

Despite the delayed market reaction to the bad news, Delta is now down 3.1 percent on the week and is testing its August 2 low of $35.82. If the stock picks up selling momentum on Friday or if the sell-off spills over into next week, the next technical support level for the stock is its June low of $32.42.