Tyson Foods, Vitamin Shoppe & Apollo Group Are Having a Bad Day

While the market is up and enjoying its ride this afternoon (despite the overhang of looming threats related to sequester), we�ve got our eyes on three of the lesser than stellar performers.

First up is health product and vitamin retailer Vitamin Shoppe (VSI) which skidded a whopping 19% after the company said that it will miss its comparable-store sales estimates in the fourth quarter.

Vitamin Shoppe noted that the results would show its weakest quarter in comparable-store sales growth since 2010, with comps rising 5.2% in the quarter compared to the 6.3% analysts polled by FactSet. Vitamin Shoppe cited tepid sales in the wake of Hurricane Sandy for some of its woes.

Alongside the IKEA horse meatball disaster currently making headlines, more bad news in the world of meat came from Tyson Foods (TSN) and shares slumped 3.3% in trading Tuesday.

The company warned that its fourth quarter would be weaker-than-expected related to margin pressure in its beef and pork segments. Despite that, Tyson Foods remained positive on its full year but failed to impress Stephens analyst Farha Aslam, who downgraded the company to Equal Weight from Overweight and cut the price target to $26 from $28 in a note today.

Aslam didn�t mince words:

Tyson Foods shares are up 53% over the past six months and now more adequately reflect the opportunities and challenges for the Company, particularly given uncertainty regarding consumer confidence and the availability of cattle over the next six months.

Last but never least, private education provider Apollo Group (APOL) also saw its stock hit, falling 3.5% after it reduced its fiscal 2013 net revenue estimate to $3.65-$3.75 billion, down from its previous forecast of $3.65-$3.80 billion. The company fell to a 53-week low in the wake of its bad news and cited disappointing enrollment in December as a source for its woes.

Worse still for Apollo, news broke that on Feb. 22, the University of Phoenix and Western International University were given notices that the Higher Learning Commission is pursuing a proposal to place them on probation over �governance� concerns.

Credit Suisse analyst K. Flynn weighed in on this issue in a research note earlier today.

These governance concerns are less concerning than academic concerns would have been, and we suspect Apollo can address these Higher Learning Commission concerns with measures that will not significantly hurt earnings power. However, given the Higher Learning Commission�s other concerns, we worry Apollo may need to make additional program and recruiting practice changes that could raise expenses, weigh on starts/ enrollments and increase downside earnings risks; in addition, Probation could hurt the University Of Phoenix’s reputation, which could further pressure enrollment and earnings.