Online furniture retailer Wayfair plummets after posting a big loss
- Furniture site Wayfair slumped more than 20% Thursday following earnings.
- The company said it lost $0.58 per share, but reported an uptick in customers and revenue.
Shares of upstart furniture e-commerce site Wayfair plummeted more than 18% Thursday morning after the company posted a bigger loss than Wall Street was expecting.
The Boston-based company reported an adjusted loss of $0.58 a share on inline revenue of $1.44 billion. Wall Street was expecting a loss of $0.52 a share.
Despite the steep loss, Wayfair said its active customers rose 33% in 2017, to 11 million, compared to the previous year.
A study by professors at Wharton and Emory in September 2017 found Wayfair was losing $10 for every new customer acquired. Their paper argues the company could be massively overvalued, as much as 80%.
Still, Wall Street analysts polled by Bloomberg expect the stock can rise as high as $87.39 this year - 11.6% above where the stock was trading Thursday morning.
"As we enter 2018 with tremendous strength, we look forward to building upon this momentum as we lead the way in creating the best possible shopping experience for home." Co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah said in a press release.
Shares of Wayfair are up 84% in the past year.
