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Carvana shares tank as bankruptcy concerns grow for used car retailer.

Shares of Carvana plummeted by more than 40% during trading Wednesday after the embattled online used car retailer’s largest creditors signed a deal binding them to act together in negotiations with the company.

The pact, as first reported by Bloomberg, includes creditors such as Apollo Global Management and Pacific Investment Management that hold around $4 billion of Carvana’s unsecured debt, or about 70% of the total outstanding. The agreement will last at least three months.

Following the creditor deal, Wedbush analyst Seth Basham said Wednesday that bankruptcy is becoming more likely for Carvana and downgraded its stock to underperform from neutral and slashed his price target to $1 from $9 per share.

JPMorgan said Wednesday that the creditor deal signals that Carvana “may have initiated debt restructuring negotiations with bond holders” but the “possibility of imminent Ch. 11 filing seems low.”

Shares of Carvana posted their worst day on record Friday after the company missed Wall Street’s top- and bottom-line expectations for the third quarter as the outlook for used cars falls from record demand, pricing and profits during the coronavirus pandemic.

The stock cratered 39% to end the day at $8.76 a share — slightly higher than its worst-ever closing price of $8.72 a share from May 2017. Shares of the online used car retailer have plummeted by 96% this year, after hitting an all-time intraday high of $376.83 per share on Aug. 10, 2021

The stock’s all-time low of $8.14 a share occurred less than a week after it started trading publicly on April 28, 2017. Carvana’s previous worst day of trading was a 26.4% decline on March 18, 2020.

Morgan Stanley on Friday pulled its rating and price target on Carvana. Analyst Adam Jonas cited deterioration in the used car market and a volatile funding environment for the change.

“While the company is continuing to pursue cost-cutting actions, we believe a deterioration in the used car market combined with a volatile interest rate/funding environment (bonds trading at 20% yield) add material risk to the outlook, contributing to a wide range of outcomes (positive and negative),” he wrote in a note to investors Friday.

Pricing and profits of used vehicles have been significantly elevated as consumers who couldn’t find or afford to purchase a new vehicle opted for a pre-owned car or truck. Inventories of new vehicles have been significantly depleted during the coronavirus pandemic largely due to supply chain problems, including an ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips.

But rising interest rates, inflation and recessionary fears have led to less willingness by consumers to pay the record prices, leading to declines for Carvana and other used vehicle companies such as CarMax.