Acadia Pharmaceuticals Stock Extends A 7-Day Losing Streak To A 25% Loss

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Acadia Pharmaceuticals (ACAD) stock has fallen for 7 consecutive trading days, losing 24.7% over that stretch. That erased about $1.1 billion from the company’s market value, which now stands at about $3.4 billion. The stock closed at $19.89 on Thursday, October 1, its lowest close of the past year.

Image from Pixabay

 
How The Streak Stacks Up Against The S&P 500

Returns for ACAD and the S&P 500 over the streak and the periods around it, all ending Thursday, October 1 and including dividends:
 

Return Period ACAD S&P 500
1 Day -1.3% 0.2%
7 Days (Current Streak) -24.7% -1.2%
1 Month (21 Trading Days) -31.2% 0.6%
3 Months (63 Trading Days) -23.4% 2.7%
Year To Date -25.5% 13.0%
1 Year (252 Trading Days) -6.8% 16.0%

How The Streak Compares With The Market

Over the same 7 trading days, the S&P 500 returned -1.2% including dividends, so the slide is mostly Acadia Pharmaceuticals’ own story rather than the market’s. Over the past three months the stock is down 23.4%, a window that includes the streak; over the other 56 sessions of that window it was essentially flat (+1.7%).

What The Numbers Say About The Slide

On the fundamentals, revenue grew 11.8% over the last twelve months, against a median of 8.1% for S&P 500 Health Care stocks; its operating margin is 7.6%, versus a median of 18.3%; and the stock trades at 9.0 times trailing earnings against a median of 28.1. On these numbers the business looks sturdier than the stock, with revenue growth above the median and a multiple below the median.

If the drop has you weighing an entry, resist buying on price alone. Our Buy the Dip screen ranks the marked-down names where growth and cash generation still hold up.

Weakness In One Name Should Be Noise, Not News

For a diversified holder, a streak like this is a data point. For a concentrated one, it is a hole in the plan. The difference is never the stock; it is the portfolio built around it.

Building that portfolio is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does: roughly 30 businesses with the cash generation and balance-sheet strength to absorb a bad month, selected and rebalanced by rules. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, the S&P MidCap 400, and the Russell 2000. Make the next streak, in either direction, someone else’s drama.