Huntsman falls 19% in a day as Texas Stock Exchange goes fully live

Huntsman shares fell 19.14% on July 31, the day after it reported a smaller loss, while merger partner Olin posted a surprise loss. The Texas Stock Exchange finished its trading rollout and rang its first closing bell that afternoon.

Two things happened on Friday, July 31. Huntsman's stock sank the morning after its quarter, and the Texas Stock Exchange finished its rollout with every National Market System symbol trading.

Huntsman lost almost a fifth of its value in one session last week. Shares of the Woodlands chemical maker closed at $12.07 on Thursday, July 30, and $9.76 on Friday, a 19.14% drop. For the week, HUN fell 23.75% from its $12.80 close on July 24. Those are Lone Star Index calculations from Yahoo Finance closes.

The selloff came the morning after second quarter results, and the results weren't the obvious problem. Revenue rose 14% to $1.663 billion, and the net loss shrank to $6 million from $158 million a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA climbed to $120 million from $74 million, per the company's earnings release.

"We delivered a solid quarter, supported by higher volumes across all three segments," Chief Executive Peter Huntsman said.

The Olin link

Olin, its merger partner, reported the same day, and that report was rougher. Olin posted a net loss of $13.3 million, or $0.12 a share, and said the quarter carried $10.6 million of costs tied to the pending merger, its earnings release shows. Analysts had expected a $0.12 profit, The Motley Fool reported. Olin's stock closed Friday at $18.51, down 16.51% from $22.17, by our math from Yahoo closes.

Under the all stock deal the two announced on June 16, Huntsman holders get 0.5476 Olin shares for each share they own, and the combined OlinHuntsman will be based in The Woodlands. Closing is targeted for the first half of 2027, and Huntsman's release set the shareholder vote for Aug. 25. Huntsman's quarterly report, filed July 31, lists The Woodlands as its address.

Our read

Huntsman's drop looks like a Huntsman story, but we think most of it came from Olin. The all stock deal pays 0.5476 Olin shares for each Huntsman share, and the June 16 merger release describes no collar or other price protection, so since signing HUN has traded largely as a slice of Olin. Olin fell 16.51% on Friday. Huntsman fell 19.14%, and the extra couple of points is the part that's Huntsman's own.

You can see it in the spread. At Thursday's closes, 0.5476 Olin shares were worth about $12.14 and Huntsman sat at $12.07, about 0.6% below. By Friday's close the Olin value was about $10.14 and Huntsman was at $9.76, a gap of about 3.7%. A wider discount usually means traders want more pay for the risk that a deal slips or changes, and Huntsman's own earnings release may have given them reasons. Free cash flow was a use of $90 million in the quarter, net debt excluding affiliates rose to $1.741 billion from $1.582 billion at the end of 2025, and Peter Huntsman called rising and volatile energy and crude oil related costs, particularly in Europe, a headwind.

For Texas readers the deal matters more than the quarter. OlinHuntsman is set to be based in The Woodlands, with Olin's Ken Lane as chief executive, Peter Huntsman as non executive chairman and Olin holders owning about 54.5%. The release doesn't say why The Woodlands won, and we won't guess. Until the Aug. 25 vote we'd expect Olin's results to move HUN about as much as Huntsman's own, and the gap between HUN and its Olin exchange value is the best gauge we've got of how much doubt the market's pricing in.

TXSE goes fully live

Up in Dallas, the Texas Stock Exchange finished its rollout the same day. Every National Market System symbol was trading by July 31, after a phased start on July 6, the governor's office said. Chief Executive Jim Lee rang the exchange's first closing bell at 3 p.m. that Friday at its temporary Uptown Dallas site, Spectrum News reported.

"Real competition for primary listings, for the first time in decades," Lee said.

Trading isn't listing, though, and the timetable for listings depends on who you ask. A July 10 client note from the law firm Venable said exchange traded product listings were expected to start in September and corporate listings in October. Spectrum's report said staff hoped to have ETFs before the end of 2026, with company listings and IPOs in 2027. We track that pipeline on Texas Exchanges.

Elsewhere in the big caps

Oracle (ORCL) gained 12.94% for the week, from $114.99 to $129.87, more than erasing the prior week's 9.03% drop. Dell (DELL) went the other way, falling 7.34% from $437.50 to $405.37 after closing as low as $369.64 on Wednesday. Both are our calculations from Yahoo closes for Oracle and Dell. McKesson (MCK), the Irving drug distributor, rose a quieter 1.82% to $856.19.

Insider buying stayed thin. We found no open market purchase by an officer or director of a listed Texas company in Form 4s filed July 27 through Aug. 2 on filings. Officers of Crestline Lending, a Fort Worth credit fund with no ticker, filed code P forms, but a footnote shows those were capital calls under a subscription agreement. Sales and option exercises made up most of the rest, and Insider Radar has the full list.

What to watch

Huntsman's filings and price history are on its company page.

Lone Star Index publishes research, not investment advice.

Related Research