Cooper Cos., one of the leading contact-lens makers, delivered a twin dose of bad news late Wednesday, but its stock may have bottomed after falling almost 14% Thursday, making it the worst performer in the S&P 500.

Cooper shares are trading at $54.77, down 13.7%, after hitting a new 52-week low of $51.01 earlier in the session.

The shares got hit after the company cut earnings and sales guidance for the current fiscal year and decided not to sell or spin off Cooper Surgical, its women's health and fertility business, after conducting a strategic review of the business. CooperSurgical accounts for about a third of Cooper's sales, with contact lenses making up the rest.

Barron's wrote positively on Cooper in August, arguing the stock, then around $73, looked appealing due to Cooper's strong position as the No. 2 player behind Johnson & Johnson in the oligopolistic contact-lens market and the potential sale of the fertility business. Our call has gone badly, with the stock down about 25%, but the shares look appealing at current levels.

Cooper now trades for a reasonable 12 times projected earnings for its fiscal year ending in October-a discount to contact-lens rivals Johnson & Johnson and Alcon, which trade for about 20 times projected 2026 earnings.

The company didn't reduce fiscal 2026 guidance by much, cutting its forecast to $4.51 to $4.55 a share from $4.58 to $4.66 a share.

Cooper could be vulnerable to a takeover-European eye-care giant EssilorLuxottica is a potential buyer-given the presence of two activist investors in the stock and management's dented credibility after it signaled strong interest in CooperSurgical. The activists are Jana Partners and Browning West.

CEO Albert White said on the June earnings conference call that Cooper was "now actively advancing discussions with multiple parties that have submitted significant indications of interest in CooperSurgical."

Why didn't the sale occur? The company cited a new entrant in the IUD market and a legal settlement involving CooperSurgical as negative factors that diminished the price potential buyers were willing to pay for the unit, which analysts said might have fetched $4 billion

Cooper now has a digestible market value of $10.5 billion.

One risk is that it's now among the 15 smallest stocks by market capitalization in the S&P 500, making it vulnerable to being dropped from the index if Cooper stock doesn't rally.

Cooper is one of four companies that dominate the contact-lens market, which has favorable long-term dynamics due to the growing incidence of myopia, or near-sightedness caused in part by increased screen time among young people.

JPMorgan analyst Robbie Marcus wrote Wednesday after the Cooper news that it can be argued that the stock looks appealing based on potential mid-single-digit annual growth.

"On that metric, the stock looks cheap, and with management planning to deploy most of its $1.5B repurchase authorization over the next five or so quarters, more than 10% of the market cap, a compelling buy thesis could be made," he wrote.

The problem is that the latest Cooper news caps what he calls a "highly disappointing string of negative outcomes over the past year-plus." He cited company-specific developments and overall weakness in the contact-lens market. He has a Neutral rating and cut his price target to $58 a share from $71.

Investors are understandably disappointed with the Cooper results, but a good bull case can be made for the stock at these depressed levels.