Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (VRX) slumped as much as 13% on Monday, the second consecutive day of steep declines, wiping out more than $6 billion in market value since Thursday’s close.
The embattled company’s shares closed down 9.7% on Friday, after Wells Fargo started coverage on the Canadian drugmaker with an “underperform” rating.
“We believe the Valeant board and management have made decisions that may have put Valeant at significant business and reputational risk,” Wells Fargo analyst David Maris wrote.
Valeant was pummeled late last year when questions about its business and accounting practices spooked investors, with the stock ending 2015 down about 70% from its August high of $263.81. The stock had fallen 16% this year to Friday’s close.
Meanwhile, Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation said on Monday that Valeant’s interim CEO Howard Schiller used the company’s jet three times in the past month with his family and friends to a small regional airport in Montrose, Colorado near his Telluride ski-house.
Valeant’s options were busy on Monday with 39,000 contracts traded by 1:00 PM ET, at nearly twice the normal pace, and trading appeared to be a mix of bullish and bearish bets, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.
The stock’s 30-day implied volatility, a gauge of the risk of a large move in the shares, is in the 98th percentile of the range of readings over the last 52 weeks.
Valeant has not yet announced a date to release earnings for the year ended Dec. 31.
