
Ask Matt: How falling stock price can hurt a company
- A falling stock price doesn't directly hurt a company, since it also got the money for those shares
- Companies with depressed stock prices might be forced to resort to borrowing or holding off expansion
- CEOs and executives also have a vested interest in seeing shares rising
How does the stock market affect a company’s business?
The stock market is quite volatile, rise and falls in the share prices won’t affect its overall business directly. However, if there is a sustained fall in share prices, it may deter the firm from issuing more shares to raise revenue.
What happens to stock prices when the market is down?
The difficulty of obtaining cash through a stock offering when share prices are down is obvious—the same number of shares sold at a lower price will raise less money. Depressed stock prices also increase the cost of borrowing, because banks take a company’s share price into account when deciding whether to extend credit and at what interest rate.
How does a fall in share prices affect the company?
How a fall in share prices affects the company. The stock market is quite volatile, rise and falls in the share prices won’t affect its overall business directly. However, if there is a sustained fall in share prices, it may deter the firm from issuing more shares to raise revenue. For example, in the current climate of stock market volatility,...
Why do companies worry about stock prices?
On a personal level, company executives worry about stock price, because disgruntled shareholders regularly fire the CEO and her team when a company underperforms. To see how falling share prices can kill a company, consider the plight of Lehman Bros. as detailed in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book Too Big To Fail.

What does it mean if a company has a low stock price?
A stock is cheap or expensive only in relation to its potential for growth (or lack of it). If a company's share price plummets, its cost of equity rises, also causing its WACC to rise. A dramatic spike in the cost of capital can cause a business to shut its doors, especially capital-dependent businesses such as banks.
How does stock price affect companies?
The rise and fall of share price values affects a company's market capitalization and therefore its market value. The higher shares are priced, the more a company is worth in market value and vice versa.
Do companies lose money when stocks go down?
Although short-sellers are profiting from a declining price, they're not taking your money when you lose on a stock sale. Instead, they're doing independent transactions with the market and have just as much of a chance to lose or be wrong on their trade as investors who own the stock.
What happens when stock price drops?
When a share's price decreases in value, that change in value is not redistributed among any parties – the value of the company simply shrinks. The stock market is governed by the forces of supply and demand.
Do companies care about their stock price?
All publicly-traded companies care about their stock price. The reasons why they care differ from company to company. The stock price is considered a proxy for the financial health and future prospects of a company and therefore also as a reflection of the performance of the company's management and board of directors.
How do companies benefit from stocks?
The stock market helps companies raise money to fund operations by selling shares of stock, and it creates and sustains wealth for individual investors. Companies raise money on the stock market by selling ownership stakes to investors. These equity stakes are known as shares of stock.
Do companies get money when you buy their stock?
How do stocks work? Companies sell shares in their business to raise money. They then use that money for various initiatives: A company might use money raised from a stock offering to fund new products or product lines, to invest in growth, to expand their operations or to pay off debt.
Why is stock important to a business?
Stocks are important to a business because they can help the corporation quickly gain a lot of capital, raise the prestige of the company with the public since people can now invest in the company, and allow the initial investors to sell off shares and earn money on their investments.
What are the secondary effects of stock price declines?
Remember, a company's stock can be used as a sort of currency. Companies can sell additional shares of stock, for instance, to buy other companies.
Why do companies sell more shares of stock?
Meanwhile, companies can sell additional shares of stock to raise cash for various purposes, including to expand. When a stock price is falling, the company must sell more shares to raise money.
What happens to the stock market after the initial sale?
But after that initial sale, the shares then trade hands between investors outside the company, including mutual funds, pension plans and individuals. If the stock price falls, these investors lose money, not the company. There are some very serious secondary effects, though, on a company resulting from stock price declines.
What happens to the company's fortunes when the stock price falls?
If a stock price is falling, they may miss out on bonuses or might suddenly find their jobs on the line.
Does a falling stock price hurt a company?
A falling stock price doesn't directly hurt a company, since it also got the money for those shares. Companies with depressed stock prices might be forced to resort to borrowing or holding off expansion. CEOs and executives also have a vested interest in seeing shares rising.
Why should a company not overissue new shares?
A company should be careful not to over-issue new shares, because an overabundance of shares circulating in the market may diminish demand, where there’s simply not enough buyers to gobble up the shares, which could ultimately depress the stock price.
Why is a company concerned about its stock price?
The prevention of a takeover is another reason a corporation might be concerned with its stock price. When a company's stock price falls, the likelihood of a takeover increases, mainly due to the fact that the company's market value is cheaper. Shares in publicly traded companies are typically owned by wide swaths of investors.
Why do analysts evaluate stock prices?
Analysts evaluate the trajectory of stock prices in order to gauge a company’s general health. They likewise rely on earning histories, and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, which signal whether a company’s share price adequately reflects its earnings. All of this data aids analysts and investors in determining a company’s long-term viability.
Why is compensation important?
Compensation likewise represents a critical rationale for a company's decision-makers to do everything in their power to make sure a corporation's share price thrives. This is because many of those occupying senior management positions derive portions of their overall earnings from stock options .
Why are share prices so high?
Companies with high share prices tend to attract positive attention from the media and from equity analysts. The larger a company's market capitalization, the wider the coverage it receives. This has a chain effect of attracting more investors to the company, which infuses it with the cash it relies on to flourish over the long haul.
Why are stock options important?
For this reason, the existence of stock options is vitally important to stimulating a company's health. Otherwise put, executives stand to personally gain when they make strategic decisions that benefit a company's bottom line, which ultimately helps stockholders grow the value of their portfolios.
Why do creditors favor companies with higher prices?
Such healthy companies are better able to pay off long-term debt, which usually means they’ll attract lower-interest-rate loans, which consequently strengthens their balance sheets.
How does a fall in share price affect a company?
How a fall in share prices affects the company. 1. General fall in Shares. If there is a fall in general share prices (e.g. fall in FTSE-100), then the company will not worry too much. The stock market is quite volatile, rise and falls in the share prices won’t affect its overall business directly.
What was the impact of the 1929 Wall Street crash?
Wall Street Crash of 1929. This was a fall in share prices which really affected firms in a bad way. Shares fell so much, consumers lost wealth, there was a run on the banks and it led to Great Depression.
Why do companies list their shares on the stock market?
Companies list shares on the stock market as a means to raise revenue. The firm sells shares in the company. They receive money that they can use to invest. Selling shares in the company can be a cheaper way of borrowing money than getting a loan from the bank.
What is shareholder in return?
The shareholder in return receives. A share of the company, and the right to vote at shareholder meetings on certain issues. A dividend. This dividend is decided by the company; it is like receiving a share of the companies profit. The potential for growth in share price.
What happens when a company acquires B?
For A to acquire B, it has to pay them. Payment can be either cash or stock. If company A’s stock price is underpriced ( say it is $10 now and the intrinsic value or true value is $20) it has to dilute its stock for lower than its value or true worth.
What are the indicators that lead to a stock price increase?
Performance indicators lead the stock price up or down. Good performance indicators such as expansion plans, selling of non profitable business, good diversification plans, good debt equity ratio, etc will lead to an increase in stock price. At the end of the day, a shareholder looks for value creation.
What does it mean when a company has a high stock price?
A company with a high stock price signals to the public that they must be a good company. A company with an ever-increasing stock price makes people money, and people also like companies that make them money. It’s mostly good PR. But basically, it’s a giant, extremely complicated, trading card game.
What happens when one company buys another?
When one company buys another, generally, the buying company is buying up 100% of all issued/sold shares of stock in the bought company from all the shareh. On a given day, the price of a company’s stock doesn’t matter to it operationally, unless it’s trying to buy or sell its shares that day.
How much does Google get if it increases to $1000?
If the stock increase to $1000, google still gets $85. If the stock drop to $0, google still gets $85. It benefits the shareholders of Google, which includes a lot of executives and employees of the company. It makes it cheaper for Google to buy other companies with stocks (e.g. 1 stock of Google for sa.
Why do companies issue more stock?
A company may issue more stock to the public, which can raise more money for the company , but it dilutes the shares . The more stock a company releases, the lower the share price will go, so companies try to avoid doing this. But a company can also benefit from stocks in other ways.
What are good performance indicators?
Good performance indicators such as expansion plans, selling of non profitable business, good diversification plans, good debt equity ratio, etc will lead to an increase in stock price. At the end of the day, a shareholder looks for value creation. Good performance indicators indica. Continue Reading.
Why do companies use stock options?
Many companies use stock options as an enticement to stay with the company, because an employee has to stick around a while to exercise them. If an executive doesn’t believe her options are going to be worth anything—a stock option is useless if the market price is lower than the option price—she’s more likely to jump ship. Customers might also be hesitant to deal with a corporation whose stock price is dropping through the floor, because they question whether the company will be around to fulfill a contract or stand behind a product warranty.
Why do stock prices increase when borrowing?
Depressed stock prices also increase the cost of borrowing, because banks take a company’s share price into account when deciding whether to extend credit and at what interest rate.
How much have stocks lost since July 24?
Stocks have lost $8.1 trillion worldwide since July 24, representing 14.8 percent of global market capitalization. Investors are clearly taking a major hit, since they own the stocks. But does a drop in share price matter to the individual corporations in question?
What happens if an executive doesn't believe her options are worth anything?
If an executive doesn’t believe her options are going to be worth anything—a stock option is useless if the market price is lower than the option price— she’s more likely to jump ship.
Does Apple lose money if you buy it for $250?
If you buy a share of Apple for $300 and sell it for $250, the company itself doesn’t lose any money. In that sense, day-to-day fluctuations in stock prices don’t mean much to stable corporations with stockpiles of cash. (Apple, for instance, currently has $76 billion stored away.)
Why do stocks rise?
A rising stock market is usually aligned with a growing economy and leads to greater investor confidence. Investor confidence in stocks leads to more buying activity which can also help to push prices higher. When stocks rise, people invested in the equity markets gain wealth. This increased wealth often leads to increased consumer spending, ...
How does stock performance affect issuance decisions?
Share issuance decisions can also be affected by stock performance. If a stock is doing well, a company might be more inclined to issue more shares because they believe they can raise more capital at the higher value. Stock market performance also affects a company’s cost of capital.
How does stock market performance affect cost of capital?
The higher the expected market performance, the higher the cost of equity capital will be .
What happens when stocks rise?
When stocks rise, people invested in the equity markets gain wealth. This increased wealth often leads to increased consumer spending, as consumers buy more goods and services when they're confident they are in a financial position to do so.
How does the stock market affect a company?
The Stock Market and Business Operations. The stock market's movements can impact companies in a variety of ways. The rise and fall of share price values affects a company’s market capitalization and therefore its market value. The higher shares are priced, the more a company is worth in market value and vice versa.
What happens when a company's stock falls?
Companies may also have substantial capital investments in their stock which can lead to problems if the stock falls. For example, companies may hold shares as cash equivalents or use shares as backing for pension funds. In any case, when shares fall, the value decreases, which can lead to funding problems.
What happens when you buy more stocks?
When consumers buy more, businesses that sell those goods and services choose to produce more and sell more, reaping the benefit in the form of increased revenues . Stock market losses erode wealth in both personal and retirement portfolios. A consumer who sees his portfolio drop in value is likely to spend less.
What Are Earnings Reports?
Publicly traded companies are required to file financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a quarterly and annual basis. These reports serve as a biography of a company, listing important financial data that informs investors of the company's overall health and stability.
Why Are Earnings Important?
Earnings reports are important because they show the company's profitability and overall financial stability.
Why Do Market Expectations Matter?
Market expectations, as measured most commonly by analysts' eanings-per-share estimates, set the tone for how the company is likely to perform. If earnings results vary from these expectations, a stock's price can respond by moving up or down.
Can You Use Historical EarningsPerformance to Make Future Decisions?
Even though past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results, looking at a stock's historical earnings performance may help investors anticipate future market movements.
Takeaway
Earnings reports provide investors with a chance to judge a company's performance. These financial results can have a serious impact on the stock's price, resulting in volatility. Don't miss the opportunity to learn more about a company's financial stability and understand why a stock's price changes directly as a result of its earnings.
What is the second avenue for an acquirer?
The second avenue for the acquirer is to bring forward the payment to create a goodwill among the new set of employees. And the final avenue avenue is for them to make some kind of conversion between the old unvested stock and their own stock option plan.
What happens if you believe a deal will destroy value?
On the other hand, if they believe the deal will destroy value, they’ll begin offloading their stock, pushing down its value.
Why did the stock price spike on April 17th?
The stock price, meanwhile, spiked 4% on April 17th, as opportunistic traders bought up the shares in the hope that an acquisition might come to pass. 2. Target company stock’s reaction to a bid. As a rule, acquisitions tend to drive up the value of a target company’s stock.
When did IBM buy Red Hat?
When IBM acquired Red Hat in 2018 , it paid Red Hat’s stockholders a 63% premium on its market price on the day that the deal was announced.
When did Exxon and Mobil merge?
In 1999, the US oil giants Exxon and Mobil agreed to a merger, to create what we now know as ExxonMobil (the “NewCo” in this example). Under the terms of the deal agreed, Exxon shareholders would receive 70% of the stock of the new entity, with Mobil shareholders receiving the remainder.
Is merger a rare thing?
The first thing to note here is that mergers in their purest sense are rare. Most ‘mergers’ are, to a greater or lesser extent, acquisitions, where the target company has more leverage in the newly formed company than they would if it were billed as an outright acquisition.

Financial Health
Financing
- Most companies receive an infusion of capital during their initial public offering (IPO) stages. But down the line, a company may rely on subsequent funding to finance expanded operations, acquire other companies, or pay off debt. This can be achieved with equity financing, which is the process of raising capital through the sale of new shares. However, for this to happen, the comp…
A Performance Indicator of Executive Management
- Investment analysts ritually track a publicly-traded company's stock price in order to gauge a company's fiscal health, market performance, and general viability. A steadily rising share price signals that a company's top brass is steering operations toward profitability. Furthermore, if shareholders are pleased, and the company is tilting towards success, as indicated by a rising s…
Compensation
- Compensation likewise represents a critical rationale for a company's decision-makers to do everything in their power to make sure a corporation's share price thrives. This is because many of those occupying senior management positions derive portions of their overall earnings from stock options. These perks afford management personnel the ability to acquire shares of the corporati…
Risk of Takeover
- The prevention of a takeover is another reason a corporation might be concerned with its stock price. When a company's stock price falls, the likelihood of a takeover increases, mainly due to the fact that the company's market value is cheaper. Shares in publicly traded companies are typically owned by wide swaths of investors. Therefore, bidders w...
Positive Press
- Companies with high share prices tend to attract positive attention from the media and from equity analysts. The larger a company's market capitalization, the wider the coverage it receives. This has a chain effect of attracting more investors to the company, which infuses it with the cash it relies on to flourish over the long haul.