Falling Earnings Send Sotheby's Lower

Every company likes to succeed, but the downside of success is that investors want you to keep building on your past achievements. Subsequent setbacks can be disappointing. For art and collectibles auctioneer Sotheby's (NYSE: BID), a great set of earnings results in mid-2016 was good for shareholders, but it also made it much harder for the company to duplicate its strong performance in the subsequent period.

Coming into Thursday's second-quarter financial report, Sotheby's investors had no illusions that it would be easy to top last year's strong performance, but they still hoped that the auctioneer would at least be able to match what it accomplished last year. Sotheby's failed to meet that benchmark, although it was still optimistic about the current state of the market and its own prospects for growth in the future. Let's take a closer look at Sotheby's to see what its results say about how high-end art and collectibles are faring.

Image source: Sotheby's.

Source: Fool.com