Weight Watchers stock spikes after Oprah reveals 40-pound weight loss
Weight Watchers (WTW) shares are going nuts after the company announced Oprah Winfrey would launch an ad campaign revealing she lost more than 40 pounds since joining Weight Watchers.
In morning trade on Thursday, shares of the company were up as much as 15%.
This is, however, not the first time that news related to Oprah has moved shares of Weight Watchers.
In January 2016, Oprah said she’d lost 26 pounds using Weight Watchers, news that sent the stock soaring higher.
And back in October 2015, Oprah revealed she bought a 10% stake in the company and the stock doubled in a day.
Oprah also sits on the company’s board of directors.
Thursday’s pop in the stock, however, is unlikely to turn around the stock’s fortunes in 2016, as shares of the weight loss company were down over 50% this year through Wednesday’s close.
And as Business Insider noted back in September, Oprah isn’t going to be able to fix Weight Watchers’ problems all on her own. Because while Oprah may have lost 41 pounds using the system, research suggests Weight Watchers members spend $377 per year for an average weight loss of just five pounds.
The company said in a release that the ads will feature, “Oprah Winfrey’s personal experience on the Beyond the Scale program, announcing that since she joined Weight Watchers, she has lost more than 40 pounds eating the foods she loves and enjoying a ‘fantastic and full life.'”
“Weight Watchers is easier than any other program I’ve ever been on,” Winfrey said. “It’s a lifestyle, a way of eating and a way of living that’s so freeing. You never feel like you are on a diet and it works.”
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Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland
