Shares in United Continental Holdings Inc. were falling 2.6% in morning action on Tuesday, as the airline continued to draw flak for having a passenger forcibly dragged off a plane Sunday.
If the carrier’s stock is that much lower at the closing bell, United UAL, -2.46% will have about $600 million wiped off its market capitalization. The company’s market cap was $22.5 billion as of Monday’s close, according to FactSet data.
Early Tuesday ahead of the market’s open, United shares had been down by as much as 6% in premarket trading.
Investors largely shrugged on Monday at the widespread criticism of United, as the airline’s stock finished yesterday’s session 0.9% higher, adding about $200 million to the company’s market cap. But now with Tuesday’s drop, the stock is on pace to be down around 1.8% for the week.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.41% —the broad U.S. stock benchmark—has lost 0.3% for the week, as it trades lower Tuesday morning.
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Tuesday’s selloff suggests many investors think the carrier’s business could suffer given the furor over the incident. Videos of the bloodied passenger being dragged off the plane by law enforcement have been widely shared on social media.
StockTwits—a social network for traders—has offered the following chart showing how sentiment around the stock has been souring:
Check out:Here’s the time a Nobel-prize-winning economist got ejected from a United flight
Opinion:What United should have done in response to that video of a man being violently pulled off a flight
United said it had asked Sunday for four volunteers to leave the plane due to overbooking, and one customer refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Louisville, Ky.
United CEO Oscar Munoz sent an email to employees that described the customer as “disruptive and belligerent,” leading the New York Post to say Munoz is “tone deaf.”
Amid the outcry, a Cowen & Co. analyst has raised her price target for United’s stock, citing encouraging March traffic, but making no mention of Sunday’s incident.