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Why Valero Energy, Government Properties Income Trust, and Nutanix Slumped Today

Wednesday was a day of cross-currents on Wall Street, as certain parts of the market showed strength even as others lagged behind. After a long period of underperformance, financial stocks came into their own, as rising interest rates stoked hopes for larger profits from the industry. Yet the high-flying tech sector took a breather on mixed news from several key players in the space. Additionally, some individual companies had bad news that sent their shares lower. Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO), Government Properties Income Trust (NASDAQ: GOV), and Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX) were among the worst performers on the day. Here's why they did so poorly.

Valero deals with downtime

Shares of Valero Energy fell 5% after the oil refining giant announced that one of its joint ventures will have to go through a period of downtime. The Diamond Green Diesel facility in Louisiana, which Valero shares with Darling Ingredients (NYSE: DAR), suffered some damage following efforts to expand its production capacity. In order to repair the damage, Diamond will replace a catalyst that's essential for the renewable diesel production process, shutting down the plant from Sept. 21 until roughly Oct. 1. With the move, the parties expect production targets of 275 million gallons per year to be met quickly, but investors weren't happy about the need for a delay.

Oil refining facility on a body of water, in front of a mostly cloudy sky near dawn or dusk.
Oil refining facility on a body of water, in front of a mostly cloudy sky near dawn or dusk.

Image source: Getty Images.

Government Properties keeps falling

Government Properties Income Trust stock declined 4.5%, adding to its losses from earlier in the week. The real estate investment trust said on Monday that it would acquire Select Income REIT (NASDAQ: SIR), with Select Income shareholders getting 1.04 shares of Government Properties for every share of Select Income they own. Some investors worried at the time that Government Properties had paid too high a premium for Select Income, and those fears have apparently persisted into the week. In a tight real estate market, good assets are hard to come by, and Government Properties will have to prove that its acquisition was smart despite the price it paid.

Nutanix keeps oscillating

Finally, shares of Nutanix dropped 6%. The enterprise cloud-computing specialist suffered a double-digit percentage drop on Monday following reports that Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Cloud division could seek to play a more competitive role in the space. Nutanix regained some of those losses on Tuesday when Google Cloud made comments downplaying any potential competition. Yet today's drop renewed concerns among shareholders, and given the ultra-competitive environment in cloud computing right now, investors have to keep their eyes squarely on Nutanix to make sure it can realize its full potential and stay ahead of its rivals.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Dan Caplinger owns shares of Alphabet (A shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool recommends Darling Ingredients and Nutanix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.