New York, May 28, 2026, 15:02 EDT
- Newell Brands shares fell about 4% in Thursday afternoon trading, while broad U.S. market trackers rose.
- The move came after a brief rebound on Wednesday and ahead of Friday’s dividend record date.
- Investors are weighing a raised 2026 outlook against weak sales, high debt and tariff uncertainty.
Newell Brands Inc. shares fell about 4% in Thursday afternoon trading, reversing the prior session’s gain as investors stayed wary of the Sharpie and Rubbermaid maker’s turnaround. The stock was last quoted at $3.515, down 14.5 cents from Wednesday’s close, while SPY, an exchange-traded fund often used as a proxy for the S&P 500, rose about 0.5%.
The move matters because Newell has little room for disappointment. The shares closed Wednesday at $3.66, still about 45% below their 52-week high of $6.64, even after gaining 1.67% that day, according to market data published by MarketWatch.
The stock has chopped around in the last 48 hours rather than finding a clean bid. It fell 1.10% on Tuesday, ending a two-day winning streak, before Wednesday’s bounce; trading volume on both days was below the stock’s 50-day average, MarketWatch reported.
The background is still Newell’s May 1 update. The company reported first-quarter net sales of $1.5 billion, down 1.1% from a year earlier, while core sales — sales adjusted for items such as currency and portfolio changes — fell 3.5%. Newell raised its full-year 2026 forecasts for net sales, core sales and normalized EPS, meaning adjusted earnings per share.
Chief Executive Chris Peterson said the company now expects to “return to top-line growth” in the second quarter. Chief Financial Officer Mark Erceg pointed to “productivity and pricing actions” as helping margins offset cost pressure and lower volume. Newell Brands
Peers gave a mixed read rather than a clear sector move. Procter & Gamble and Clorox were lower in afternoon trading, while Avery Dennison edged higher; Newell’s drop was larger than moves in those names and weaker than XLY, a consumer discretionary sector fund, which rose about 0.2%.
The next near-term marker is not an earnings report but the dividend record date. Newell this month declared a quarterly cash dividend of 7 cents a share, payable June 15 to shareholders of record at the close of trading on May 29.
There is a catch. Newell’s March-quarter filing showed $4.97 billion of debt, $201 million of cash and cash equivalents, and $233 million of cash used in operations. Inventories rose to $1.49 billion, and the company said it paid about $120 million of 2025 IEEPA tariffs, with the refund process still uncertain. That leaves the downside scenario fairly plain: if second-quarter demand does not improve, the market may focus less on the raised outlook and more on leverage, cash burn and tariff risk.
For now, the stock is trading like a turnaround story that still has to prove the sales line can follow the margin work. A flat-to-2% second-quarter sales outlook gives investors a near-term yardstick; Thursday’s slide suggests they are not yet willing to pay much for it.
