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LendingClub has lost almost all of its neobank gains

The online lender beat Wall Street's expectations, but reported a weaker-than-expected outlook.

Stock chart

LendingClub's results weren't enough to calm traders.

Photo: Maxim Hopman/Unsplash

Shares of LendingClub fell in after-hours trading Wednesday after posting weaker-than-expected revenue outlook, despite reporting strong results. The fall below $20 wiped out almost all the gains the company saw in a rally that ran from July to November as its neobank strategy showed strength, taking shares from around $16 to as high as $49. With inflation on the rise and other threats looming, that strategy's freshly in question.

LendingClub’s stock tumbled about 14% in trades after the market closed, following a trading session that saw its shares rise 4.5% in anticipation of its earnings. The company reported a profit of 27 cents a share on revenue of $262.2 million in the fourth quarter. Analysts expected LendingClub to post earnings of 22 cents a share on revenue of $245.7 million.

The company said it expects first-quarter revenue of $255 million to $265 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of $257 million.

Analyst Michele Alt, a partner at Klaros Group, attributed the stock fall to “market jitters.”

LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn agreed, telling Protocol, “There's just a lot of volatility out there and a lot of anxiety and a lot of sharp movements happening.”

Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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