The shares of Tupperware Brands, maker of kitchen utensils, were in freefall on Wall Street on Monday, promoting the company to announce that it has hired financial advisers to allay investor doubts about its continuity.
Tupperware lost nearly 49% of its market capitalisation in a single day. The stock, which was still above $20 in early April, ended Monday at $1.24.
The major stock market gauges in New York managed to turn opening losses into small pluses. The Dow-Jones index ended 0.3% higher at 33,586.52 points, while the broader composite S&P 500 advanced by 0.1% to 4,109.11 points. However, tech exchange Nasdaq closed fractionally lower, at 12,084.35 points.
Investors returned from a long Easter weekend on Monday. Because of Good Friday and Easter, US investors were only now able to digest Friday’s jobs report, which showed that US job growth weakened further in March. Lately, there have been more signs that the US economy is cooling and there are even concerns about a recession.
Chip companies Micron Technology and Western Digital were up more than 8.0%. According to stock market traders, this was due to Samsung Electronics plans to cut its chip production, raising hopes that chip prices will rise again. Chip maker TSMC went against the trend and was down by more than 1%.
Apple, whose PC sales fell sharply in the first quarter of this year, lost 1.6 %. Other computer makers are also struggling with excess inventories and weak demand for their products.
Tesla ended 0.3% lower. The group is to build a new factory in the Chinese city of Shanghai to produce its so-called Megapack energy storage systems, a battery system for temporarily storing power from wind and solar farms.
