Shares of GoPro fell nearly 10 percent last Monday after a French journalist said one of the company’s helmet cameras may have played a role in F1 Champion Michael Shumachers tragic accident.
Shumachers ski helmet cracked open on impact during a fall that left him with severe head injury while skiing at a French resort in Chamonix, France. The seven-time Formula 1 champion emerged from an induced coma in June 2014 and is still recovering.
Jean Louis Moncet, a well-known Formula 1 journalist in France, initially asserted the camera was “part of the problem” and seemed to suggest he had spoken to Schumacher’s son, Mick, who presumably passed on the details.
“The problem for Michael was not the hit, but the mounting of the GoPro camera that he had on his helmet that injured his brain,” Moncet had told radio station Europe 1 over the weekend.
But following GoPros stock descent and reports that GoPro was considering the possibility of civil action against the reporter, Moncet later on during the week backtracked on his comments, insisting it was “his opinion.”
For the week, GoPros stock was down 12.3 percent, also impacted by a broader market decline marked by a 1 percent decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Since its June debut on the NASDAQ, GoPro had been on a tear. Its high of $93.85 was reached earlier this month, nearly four times its initial public offering price of $24.
