The Crushing of Equifax

Banks, credit card companies, and other Equifax customers squeal. Consumers (the product) squeal. Congress squeals. Investors squeal.
Equifax shares dropped another 16% during the day and after-hours on Wednesday to $97.51. They’ve now plunged 31%, or $44.82, in the four trading days since Equifax confessed that 143 million consumers had their data crown-jewels stolen when it was hacked. The stolen data is perfect for identity theft, such as getting a loan in your name, and tax fraud, such as getting a tax refund from the IRS in your name, with Kafkaesque consequences for you.
Investors, seeing what this might do to the company, have voted with their sell-button. Based on the 120.4 million shares outstanding as of June 30, the four-trading-day loss amounts to $5.4 billion.
The stink has been enormous, with Equifax having to back down from some of its most egregious solutions to this problem, including forcing consumers to give away their legal right to sue in order to sign up for its credit protection services. Equifax rescinded this requirement over the weekend, buckling under scathing criticism.

This post was published at Wolf Street on Sep 13, 2017.