Wayfair stock is down 20% in premarket today: how come?

Shares of Wayfair Inc (NYSE: W) were down nearly 20% in premarket trading after the eCommerce home retailer said it lost more money in the fiscal fourth quarter than what the Wall Street had expected.

Notable figures in the Q4 report

• Net loss in Q4 printed at $202 million that translates to $1.92 per share.
• In the same quarter last year, Wayfair had posted $24 million in net income or 23 cents a share.
• On an adjusted basis, the U.S. firm lost 92 cents per share.
• At $3.252, quarterly revenue noted a year-over-year decline of roughly 11%.
• U.S. revenue was down 8.8% and international 23%.
• FactSet consensus was for 70 cents of adjusted per-share loss on $3.282 billion in revenue.

Wayfair was pretty much in freefall last year, with the stock now down about 70% since April 2021. It trades at a PE multiple of 141 at present. The company announced key executive hires a week ago.

CEO Shah’s comments

In the recent quarter, Wayfair noted a 12.5% annualised decline in active customers to 27.3 million, but average order value jumped 21% YoY. In the earnings press release, CEO Niraj Shah said:

Revenue for fiscal 2021 as a whole was down 3.1%. The Boston-based company ended the year with $2.40 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. The chief executive added: