What Happened?
Shares of alternate site health provider Option Care Health (NASDAQ: OPCH) fell 26.4% in the afternoon session after the company reported weak first-quarter 2026 results, including a revenue miss and a lowered full-year financial outlook.
For the quarter, revenue grew a slight 1.3% year-over-year to $1.35 billion, which fell short of analyst forecasts. While the company's adjusted earnings per share of $0.40 beat expectations, it showed no growth compared to the same quarter last year. More concerning for investors, Option Care Health lowered its full-year revenue guidance to a midpoint of $5.73 billion, which was below previous guidance and 3.6% under analysts' estimates. The combination of missing current revenue targets and reducing future expectations signaled slowing growth, leading to a negative reaction from the market.
The shares closed the day at $19.86, down 26.1% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Option Care Health’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 7 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Option Care Health and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 4 months ago when the stock gained 8.9% on the news that the company announced it was doubling its share repurchase authorization to $1.0 billion and released its preliminary 2025 results.
The board of directors approved the increase to the share repurchase program from $500 million. Option Care Health also provided preliminary unaudited results, with fourth-quarter 2025 net revenue expected between $1.46 billion and $1.47 billion. The company's guidance for 2026 called for net revenue of $5.8 billion to $6.0 billion, which fell slightly below some analyst estimates. Despite the mixed outlook, investor sentiment was buoyed by the significant buyback and positive analyst actions. Analysts at both Citizens and Morgan Stanley raised their price targets on the stock to $38.00, with Citizens reiterating a "Market Outperform" rating.
Option Care Health is down 37.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $20.28 per share, it is trading 44.6% below its 52-week high of $36.59 from January 2026. Despite the year-to-date decline, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Option Care Health’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,064.
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