Shares of Irish product tanker owner Ardmore Shipping lost 5.2% of their value in Monday trading on the New York Stock Exchange on extremely high trading volume.
There was no particular news around the company and losses exceeded those of tanker peers on a lacklustre day for that sector.
The New York-listed company traded 2.55m shares, or nearly five times its usual daily volume.
Ardmore management did not respond to a message before TradeWinds’ deadline.
The reversal had all the earmarks of a selldown or exit by a major shareholder, although there was no immediate evidence of that being the case.
Shares in Anthony Gurnee-led Ardmore closed at $13.26 on Monday, down $0.73 from Friday’s close of $13.99. The share continued to slide in after-hours trading to $13.02, a further loss of 1.8%.
By comparison, Ardmore’s closest peer in the US market, the larger Scorpio Tankers, fell 2.5% for the day on slightly below-average volume. It reversed the trend in the after-market, gaining more than 2% to $57.45.
Shares of Danish product tanker owner Torm fell about 1% to $30.08 on normal volume.
The stock of two shipowners with mixed fleets that include clean-product tonnage also lost ground, but fared better than Ardmore. International Seaways dropped 2.4% on regular volume, while Tsakos Energy Navigation gave up 1.9% on more than double volume.
As TradeWinds has reported, Ardmore performed better than any of the 25 shipping stocks under coverage of investment bank Jefferies with a 326% spike over the course of 2022.
At Ardmore’s annual report in March, US-based institutional investor Black Rock held the largest position with 3.54m shares or 8.6% of the company.
Dimensional Fund Advisors was next with 2.3m shares or 5.6%, followed by Aristotle Capital Management with 2.2m shares or 5.4%.
But private Scorpio Holdings – backer of Scorpio Tankers – vaulted into those ranks in July, disclosing a 5.33% holding in the Irish shipowner.
Scorpio president Robert Bugbee said the Ardmore stake and a further investment of undisclosed size in Oslo-listed Hafnia Tankers reflected the group’s fundamental belief in “an inflection point” in the clean product market.
However, Ardmore’s performance so far in 2023 is not going to be confused with the standout result last year. It started the new year at $14.04 per share, about 5.5% above the current trading level.
The Baltic Clean Tanker Index is down about 60% year to date.
