Former pandemic darlings including Peloton (PTON), Carvana (CVNA), Wayfair (W), and Chewy (CHWY) have seen a fall-from-grace—all seeing falling share prices.

Yahoo Finance’s Diane King Hall and Rachelle Akuffo join Yahoo Finance Live to weigh in on these companies’ business models in a post-Covid world.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Video Transcript

DIANE KING HALL: Pandemic darlings have had a rocky past few years. Well, back in 2021 actually the times were good for them, Peloton, Carvana, Wayfair, and Chewy had a collective market capitalization of over $160 billion as they rode the highs of the stay-at-home consumer. But since then, interest has certainly tapered off with web visits and share prices falling far below the highs of 2020.

I mean, many of these companies with, you know, we want to pull out chewy from that conversation went from pandemic darlings to duds when you think about where they were and are now. I mean, you look at Peloton today, Rachelle that is around $6 a share today, and I mean at its peak, it was triple digit stock. Look at that. I mean, all of those under some pressure today. We are seeing some drift in the market in general today, but look at that and think about where they were, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I think it's a story of failure to future proof. We knew we were in the pandemic, we didn't know how long we were going to be in it, but we knew that people weren't going to be staying home forever on Peloton's. And then when you think of the price point as well, it just-- they didn't have enough of a moat to make it something where people would want to, you know, keep buying it.

I for one I let everyone know I returned mine because I was like, yeah, I'll stay at home and work out. I don't even like working out. Why did I buy a Peloton? So there was-- so there was some of that. But then when you look at a company like Carvana, which still has a lot of room to run, people are still going to be buying cars, it put them in a better position.

People are still going to be buying for their pets as well, which is why Chewy's still doing well. But Peloton, I think, did not think far enough about beyond the pandemic as to where that growth would come from, unfortunately.

Indeed.