Why Dole Stock Dropped 12% at the Open Today

Shares of Dole (NYSE: DOLE), which grows and sells fruits and vegetables, fell sharply at the open of trading on Tuesday, losing as much as 12% of their value in the first few minutes of trading. The drop was precipitated by the company's first-quarter 2022 earnings release. The results were a bit mixed, but investors clearly didn't like what they read very much.

Revenue came in at $2.245 billion in the first quarter of 2022, down slightly from a pro forma $2.266 billion in the same period of the prior year. The pro forma here is because Dole completed its initial public offering in July of 2021, a move that included a merger with another produce company, so there really aren't "official" figures for the first quarter of 2021.

That said, the top-line drop was partly driven by a packaged-salad recall that led to a 16.2% revenue decline in the company's fresh vegetables division. Dole missed Wall Street's revenue expectations.

Source Fool.com