Peloton's Biggest Problem Isn't the Return to Normal

Nov. 5, 2022, wasn't Peloton's (NASDAQ:PTON) best day, to say the least. PTON stock, after already having been halved since the summer, shed another 35% that day. Financial commentators, naturally, had a field day with this. Citing a "a slump in revenue," one writer's postmortem declared in 50-point font, "Peloton's earnings show Americans may be abandoning at-home workouts." Or, maybe they're not. A deeper dive into the fiscal figures strongly suggests that Peloton's biggest problem isn't a post-Covid return to "normal," but a company-specific penchant for spending beyond its means.

Image source: Getty Images.

If everybody's venturing back into public fitness centers because vaccines are widely available now, then Peloton's revenues should have completely dried up. Yet there's scant evidence that this actually happened.

Source Fool.com