Bed Bath & Beyond Inc shares declined by 12.5% on Thursday after billionaire investor Ryan Cohen signaled his intent to sell all of his shares in the retail company. According to a filing on late Wednesday, Cohen’s investment company RC Ventures currently holds 9.45 million shares in Bed Bath & Beyond, making it the second largest investor in the company.
Following this announcement, the company’s shares declined from $30 to $19; a reversal of the 360% rise over the course of August. Susanna Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, believes that this situation could further deteriorate. “The frenzy currently surrounding Bed Bath and Beyond could turn into more of a nightmare for speculators who piled into the stock in recent days to emulate meme stock influencers.”
Analytics firm S3 Partners said on Wednesday that it estimates that the previous Bed Bath & Beyond stock rally resulted in a missed income of $600 million for investors that chose to bet against the stock.
Cohen, who is also the chairman of GameStop, could not be reached for comment on the situation.