[Special Stock] CJ CheilJedang Weakens on Q1 Earnings Below Expectations... New Low

CJ CheilJedang continued its decline for the third consecutive day, hitting a 52-week low during trading.

As of 9:25 a.m. on the 9th, CJ CheilJedang was trading at 231,000 KRW on the Korea Exchange, down 3,500 KRW (1.49%) from the previous day. During the session, the price fell to 230,000 KRW, breaking the 52-week low.

The stock price appears to have been affected by disappointing earnings forecasts for the first quarter of this year. On the same day, Korea Investment & Securities projected that CJ CheilJedang's first-quarter sales would increase by 1.8% year-on-year to 7.3416 trillion KRW, while operating profit would decrease by 7.3% to 348.4 billion KRW, missing consensus estimates (the average forecast by securities firms) by 1.2% and 10.9%, respectively. Eunji Kang, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, explained, "The domestic food business is expected to perform poorly with sales slightly declining compared to the same period last year," adding, "The bio business division's profitability will deteriorate overall due to intensified market competition for tryptophan, which has higher profitability than lysine, negatively impacting the entire bio business division's profitability."