3M plunges as company delivers exactly the kind of bad earnings news investors fear
3M (MMM) fell 11.03% today, Tuesday, January 23, the most in nearly five years, after announcing projections for 2024 sales and earnings below Wall Street expectations. Now granted that 3M is a special case–the company is engaged in a huge restructuring effort that has met with a high degree of investor skepticism. In short, investors doubt that the company can pull it off without cutting its dividend. So the stock is especially sensitive to any news that suggest that the restructuring is failing. But the stock’s big drop today is also an indication of how worried this market, trading at record highs, is about the possibility that earnings growth for the fourth quarter, the subject of the current earnings season, won’t support prices at these levels.
