Why Century Aluminum Co. Stock Crashed 20% on Thursday

Shares of Century Aluminum Co. (NASDAQ: CENX) stock closed down 20.4% today.

Believe it or not, Century Aluminum actually posted a profit on Thursday -- $0.07 per share. Adjusted for so-called one-time items, however, the stock earned only a penny a share.

Making matters even worse, analysts had been telling investors to expect a profit of $0.22 per share on a pro forma basis. So viewed from the perspective of Wall Street, what Century reported was an earnings miss...by 95.5%! The fact that Century Aluminum grew both sales and profits sequentially, therefore, didn't save its stock from suffering a gigantic sell-off.

Source: Fool.com