Lab Equipment Leader Loses $2.6 Billion in Market Value in One Day

Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) plunged 5.82% on the New York Stock Exchange on the 22nd, closing at $113.46 and wiping out roughly $1.76 billion in market capitalization—about ₩2.6 trillion. Trading volume for the day reached 1,433,390 shares.

In its fiscal 2026 first-quarter results, announced at the end of February, the company reported revenue of approximately $1.8 billion (₩2.7 trillion) with healthy margins and provided guidance for full-year revenue and EPS growth. However, in March Goldman Sachs and Baird both cut their price targets, tempering near-term expectations. At the annual shareholder meeting on March 20, shareholders approved amendments to the charter and bylaws to phase out the board’s staggered terms over three years, advancing corporate governance reforms.

Since spinning off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, Agilent has grown into a global equipment and services provider specializing in life sciences, diagnostics, and chemical analysis, with a market cap of about $32 billion (₩47 trillion). It supplies core laboratory instruments and software—such as chromatography, mass spectrometry, and spectroscopy—to customers in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, medical and diagnostic labs, environmental and food safety, and the semiconductor and chemical industries, earning its reputation as a relatively defensive growth stock.