shares of generac holdings inc took a hit friday after bofa securities analyst julien dumoulinsmith effectively threw in the towel on the portable and homegenerator maker saying hopes that the worst was in the past have faded as pressures mount in its residential business the stock gnrc fell 24 in midday trading enough to put it among the sp 500’s spx worst performers generac shares were still up 86 year to date but have dropped 192 from their 2023 peak close of 13523 on feb 15 in 2022 they plunged 714 dumoulinsmith cut his rating on generac to underperform from neutral and slashed his stockprice target to 91 from 141 the new price target implies about 17 downside from current levels dumoulinsmith is now just the second analyst of the 27 surveyed by factset who is bearish on generac “after generac’s precipitous fall from grace as the second worst performing stock in sp in 2022 we argued shares had largely flushed out into 2023” dumoulinsmith wrote in a note to clients “however generac’s ambitious fiscal year 2023 guidance seems increasingly out of reach to us as pressures mount in the residential segment” the company had said in midfebruary in its fourthquarter report that it expected 2023 sales to be down 6 to down 10 from 2022 sales of 456 billion the current factset consensus for 2023 sales of 41 billion implies a 10 decline dumoulinsmith’s estimate for 2023 sales is much lower than those of his peers he expects sales to fall about 25 to 343 billion he said it’s difficult to accept management’s insistence that the channel congestion of homestandbygenerator hsb inventory will be alleviated in the second half of 2023 when the latest winter storms didn’t accelerate inventory drawdowns and management has stated that demand is most closely driven by outages and storm activity “our latest discussions with management provide more caution than comfort and we highlight emerging negative risks” dumoulinsmith wrote “into a deteriorating macro environment with a strained residential consumer we highlight risk to further hsb underperformance on volumes and pricing” he added