HomeAway Shares Drop to Record Low on ITG Analyst Report

HomeAway Inc. (AWAY), an online vacation- rental service, tumbled to the lowest since December after ITG Investment Research issued a report expressing concern about the company.

HomeAway fell 6.1 percent to $20.38 at the close in New York. Earlier, the stock touched $19.76, its lowest intraday price since the Austin, Texas-based company sold shares to the public in June 2011 at $27 apiece.

Steve Weinstein, an analyst at ITG in New York, “issued a cautious note on AWAY before the market open this morning based on our proprietary data analysis,” the firm said in an e-mailed statement. ITG spokesman James Farley said the report won’t be provided to the press for a couple of days, and he declined to elaborate on Weinstein’s estimates for HomeAway.

HomeAway said in April that sales this year will rise to $280.4 million to $284.7 million, from $230.2 million in 2011. Adjusted earnings will be $80 million to $82 million. On a conference call at the time, Chief Executive Officer Brian Sharples said that Europe is “still quite a wildcard for us.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net