Pomerantz Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action against Apache Corporation and Certain Officers - APA - Seite 2

On April 23, 2019, before financial markets opened, Apache announced that it had begun a "[t]emporary" deferral of natural gas production at Alpine High. In response to this news, Apache's stock price fell $4.03 per share, or nearly 11% over the next four trading days, from a close of $37.09 per share on April 22, 2019, to close at $33.06 per share on April 26, 2019.

Then, on October 25, 2019, Apache's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Exploration, Steven Keenan, abruptly resigned from the Company. In response to this announcement, Apache's stock price dropped $1.16 per share, or approximately 5%, from a close of $23.23 per share on October 24, 2019, to close at $22.07 per share on October 25, 2019. Apache's stock traded as low as $20.57 per share on October 25, 2019, an intra-day drop of approximately 11.5%, prompting Bloomberg to issue a story titled "Apache Executive's Departure Sparks Worst Rout Since 2016."

A few months later, on February 26, 2020, after the close of the markets, Apache announced that it was completely de-valuing Alpine High after taking a $3 billion write down on the project. Two weeks later, on March 12, 2020, Apache announced that it had slashed its quarterly dividend by 90% (from $0.25 per share to just $0.025 per share) and was significantly reducing planned capital expenditures for the rest of 2020. On this news, the price of Apache common stock fell $0.49 per share, or approximately 6%, from a close of $8.25 per share on March 11, 2020, to close at $7.76 per share on March 12, 2020.

A few days later, on March 16, 2020, Seeking Alpha published an article pre-market noting that Apache was particularly challenged amongst its peers, carrying "the highest debt-to-equity ratio among large-cap independent [exploration and production companies]," and that "[t]he company doesn't have a strong balance sheet" and its "financial health isn't great." The article observed that low gas prices had "forced Apache to shift capital away from the wet-gas rich Alpine High play which has been driving the company's production growth." The article noted that "Apache also reduced Alpine High's value by $1.4 billion."