Why Did Academy Sports & Outdoors (ASO) Stock Dip Today?

Academy Sports & Outdoors Inc ASO shares closed nearly 5.6% lower in the regular session on Thursday.

What Happened: The dip came as JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM put on sale 9 million shares of Academy Sports on sale after Wednesday’s close at $28.80, Reuters reported. 

The block trade was priced at a 6.43% discount to Academy Sport’s Wednesday closing price of $30.78.

On Thursday, the shares closed at $29.05 and gained 7.23% in the after-hours session to $31.15.

Academy Sports shares hit a record high of $33.74 earlier in April. The company’s stock has risen 40.1% on a year-to-date basis.

Why It Matters: The seller was not identified by Reuters but the newswire noted that KKR & Co Inc KKR owns at least that many shares based on public filings with regulators. 

A block that large is equivalent to a week’s worth of trading volume on the 30-day moving average and represents nearly a third of ASO’s free float of about 28 million shares, as per Refinitiv.

In late January, KKR sold almost 12 million shares of Academy Sports in a secondary offering at $21.50 which brought down its stake to about 55% or nearly 49.6 million shares, reported Reuters.

The next largest shareholder is Fidelity Management which holds 3 million shares.

On Monday, Academy Sports shares saw a spike due to high social media interest including on the r/WallStreetBets forum best-known for conducting short squeezes in stocks of GameStop Corporation GME and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC shares.