Investors Check Out Of La Quinta Holdings

em>Joel Elconin is the co-host of Benzinga's #PreMarket Prep, a daily trading idea radio show.

La Quinta Holdings LQ shares are trading lower by $3 at $15.97 in Friday's session. The catalyst for the decline is the resignation of its CEO, Wayne Goldberg. Also, the company cut adjusted EBITDA outlook from $398M-$404M to $393-$400M. The combination of the two caused both JP Morgan and Citigroup to downgrade the Neutral and reduced price targets to $20 and $21 respectively,. After a sharply lower open ($$15.93 vs. Thursday's close of $18.97), it bottomed within the first few minutes of trading at $15.69 and reversed course. The current low marks a new all time low for the issue as the former one stood at $16.01 from May 2014. The ensuing rebound has taken the issue to $16.55, which is well shy of Thursday's low of $18.70. Today's price action is taking place on much higher than average volume. With fours remaining 7.5M shares have traded compared to its 20 day average of 1.57M.