Harvey Norman (HVN) shares fell out of bed yesterday, losing more than 8% to end a rough day’s trading at nine month lows.
The shares ended the day at $4.36, down 8.2% in what was the biggest one day slide since late 2011.
But the shares should bounce this morning after co-founder Gerry Harvey stepped into the market late today to support the weakening share price.
There was no major announcements yesterday – just a series of director shareholding notifications which triggered the sell-off.
One revealed that director David Ackery had sold a stake in the retailer. This comes after chief executive Katie Page last week also reduced her shares in the company.
Mr Ackery revealed he had sold $1.5 million shares only days after managing director Page sold $1.06 million. She is Gerry Harvey’s wife and her sale really panicked the market.
Late on Monday executive chairman Gerry Harvey took advantage of the share price fall and snapped up 2 million shares for $8.7 million, lifting his controlling stake.
The shares peaked eight-year highs of $5.38 last August Since it reported better than expected results for the December half years the shares have lost 16% (with half of that coming yesterday).
Theres a belief among some in the market that Harvey Norman will be hurt by the supposed entry of Amazon into the Australian market later this year.
