It’s been a bad month for shareholders of International Consolidated Airlines Group (LSE: IAG). The IAG share price has crashed over the past month, sending the stock to the bottom of the FTSE 100 performance table. This followed two pieces of bad news since Bonfire Night.
The IAG share price takes a tumble
On Friday, the IAG share price closed at 131.68p, down 0.64p (-0.5%) on the day. Although this popular stock lost only 1.7% last week, it has collapsed by more than a quarter (-26.9%) over the past month. What’s more, it has also tumbled almost 35% over the past six months and is down 22.3% over the past year.
What went wrong?
So what went wrong for the owner of British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus airlines? On 16 March this year, the IAG share price was flying high, hitting its 52-week intra-day high of 222.1p. The stock then declined markedly until mid-September, but bounced back to close at 180.16p on Friday, 5 November. Alas, it’s all been downhill since then. On Friday, the stock closed almost 48.5p, down 26.9% in just four weeks. Ouch.
There are two reasons why the IAG share price has taken a big hit recently. First, its Q3 results on 5 November revealed the group’s ongoing financial struggle with coronavirus. Second, news of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant on Friday, 25 November sent the stock tumbling southwards yet again. According to the Anglo-Spanish group’s financial calendar, IAG has no new results until its 2021 full-year results are released on 25 February. Hence, this beaten-down stock may continue to be volatile over the winter months.
