Vera Bradley’s stock could become difficult to trade if the company’s struggles continue.
Depending on how the women’s handbag, luggage and accessories company navigates the coming months, its stock could be delisted by the Nasdaq Stock Market. The delisting process is set in motion when a company’s shares trade below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days.
Vera Bradley Inc.’s share price has been below $5 for all of 2025. In fact, Vera Bradley Inc. stock has closed below $2.50 a share on the Nasdaq every day except one since late March. That’s a steep decline from mid-2011, when shares reached the $50 range. Friday’s close was $1.78 a share.
The Fort Wayne-based company’s officials this week publicly professed optimism about the company’s future – despite reporting a management shakeup and a first fiscal quarter loss of $33.5 million. That optimism isn’t reflected in the Fort Wayne company’s stocks, however.
Some, but not all, of the downward pressure on the company’s stock could be blamed on broad market volatility caused by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, a local investment adviser said this week.
The company’s stock prices primarily reflects its own performance, according to Dave Dickmeyer, a partner in Dickmeyer Boyce Financial Management.
“Vera Bradley has struggled with sales growth and declining earnings. The stock price has been in general decline since 2014,” he said through email. “Although Vera Bradley manufacturing is mainly in China, President Trump’s tariff independence day announcement did not seem to pile on to an already low price for the stock.”
Evolving styles
As fashion trends have evolved, Vera Bradley has struggled to maintain a connection with customers.
The company’s decade-long attempts at a turnaround have failed to gain traction, resulting in fiscal 2025’s annual loss of $62.2 million, or $1.69 per diluted common share. The retailer’s fiscal year ended Feb. 1.
Project Restoration, a plan designed to transform the business model and brand positioning, was launched publicly June 13, 2024. The companywide makeover was executives’ attempt to bounce back from several years of slumping sales and quarterly losses driven by the coronavirus pandemic and changing fashion trends. It followed Vision 20/20, a failed attempt to shore up the brand’s operating performance led by previous CEO Rob Wallstrom.
“(W)e acknowledge that our transformation is taking longer than initially anticipated,” outgoing CEO Jackie Ardrey said in a January statement, adding that the company has experienced an “unexpected shift” in sales from its outlet stores to online.
Ardrey first spoke to the media about Project Restoration last June. At that time, she said the turnaround effort had been in progress behind the scenes for about a year but that customers wouldn’t begin noticing changes to brand marketing, products, store design and the website until mid-July.
She said then that the launch would include “new and elevated products” and modernized store displays. Ardrey added that company officials didn’t expect to see a bump in sales until the company’s third quarter.
Those expectations were dashed, but as part of the third-quarter earnings report Ardrey said there was reason to hope sales would improve with Vera Bradley’s holiday product assortment. Again, that hope wasn’t realized as sales declined. Fourth-quarter revenue was $100 million, 25% less than the previous year’s fourth quarter total of $133 million.
Delisting details
Delisting isn’t as unusual as it might seem. About 180 stocks have been removed from active trading on the Nasdaq stock market since Jan. 1, according to Stock Analysis, a financial data website.
Some of the more recognizable names include Ballys Corp., which merged with its largest shareholder; 23 and Me Holding Co., which filed for bankruptcy protection; and Nordstrom Inc., which was taken private by the Nordstrom family.
Vera Bradley isn’t poised to be delisted anytime soon – its price would need to stay below $1 for months. The stock’s lowest price over the past 52 weeks was $1.72, according to Yahoo Finance.
But the company’s ability to attract new investors could be fading. Edward Jones, a St. Louis-based investment firm, no longer assigns an analyst to follow Vera Bradley, spokeswoman Julia Meder said through email.
For comparison, competitor Tapestry Inc., which owns the Coach and Kate Spade New York brands, is followed by about 20 sell-side analysts who represent major national and regional brokerage firms, according to Yahoo Finance. Tapestry’s share price is about $80.
Two analysts follow Vera Bradley and rate the company’s stock a “strong buy” with a target price of $4, according to Benzinga, a Detroit-based financial news and data firm. Assuming they are right, anyone buying the stock now could double their money.
By contrast, Zacks Research, a Chicago-based firm, rates Vera Bradley’s stock a “strong sell.”
Unfavorable trend
A Zacks Equity Research report issued Wednesday noted that Vera Bradley revenue and earnings both failed to beat analysts’ consensus estimates. Also, the company’s shares have lost about 40% in value since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500’s gain of 2.7%.
The report says “one reliable measure” of a stock’s future is the company’s earnings outlook.
“Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately,” the report states. “Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions.”
The Zacks report notes that investors can track such revisions. Ahead of this week’s earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Vera Bradley was unfavorable, according to the research firm.
Dickmeyer, the local financial adviser, said all isn’t lost when a stock is removed from the Nasdaq and trades instead on the over-the-counter bulletin board or the pink sheets.
“When a stock is delisted, it does not mean the stock is worthless, it just means that it is traded over-the-counter rather than on the exchange,” he said. “This does lower the liquidity of the stock as it becomes a bit harder to trade. Trading volume is lower and therefore less liquid.”
Investopedia describes the over-the-counter bulletin board as an electronic trading service offered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Over-the-counter trading has very little regulation. Companies will trade here if they are current in their financial statements.
Investopedia says the pink sheets are considered even riskier than the over-the-counter bulletin board. The pink sheets are a quotation service that doesn’t require that companies register with the Securities and Exchange Commission or remain current in their periodic filings. The stocks on the pink sheets are very speculative.
