Starbucks saw 11-day stock skid as sales continued to drop

The Thanksgiving hangover is a little more intense than usual for Starbucks this year.

The coffee giant recently experienced an 11-day slide in its stock that wiped out 9.4% of its market value, or nearly $12 billion. It’s a bit of whiplash for Starbucks, since at the start of the month, the company reported stronger-than-expected results from the Pumpkin Spice Latte promotion that started in August.

• At the time, CEO Laxman Narasimhan told investors that the company saw “record-breaking average weekly sales.”
• Now, Starbucks is seeing a “material slowing” in sales, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst John Ivankoe noted.

The good news (or bad news, depending how you look at it) is that Starbucks isn’t the only company in its category feeling the pain. Sales slowed in the snack and coffee industry in the week ending on Nov. 19, according to Bloomberg, citing data from research firm M Science.

• But for Starbucks specifically, its Red Cup Day promotion on Nov. 16 fell a little flat, as it only increased store traffic by 32%, compared with last year when stores saw a 81% bump in traffic, according to Placer.ai.

Zoom out: Starbucks has also been subject to calls for boycotts from customers and union workers, who recently expressed solidarity with Palestinians. In recent years, many Starbucks employees have been working to unionize stores across the country; there are currently more than 370 unionized locations.