from artinfo.com

NEW YORK—Sotheby’s stock tumbled yesterday amid fears that its big Damien Hirst sale could flop, Bloomberg reports.

The auction house has estimated earnings of more than £65 million pounds ($114 million) for the three-session, two-day, 223-lot London sale, but investors clearly have doubts, with the price of a Sotheby’s share down 8 percent after yesterday’s trading in the New York Stock Exchange. In total, the stock’s value has dropped 40 percent this year and 60 percent from a peak in October 2007.

“It’s very simple: the Damien Hirst will fail,“ said Asher Edelman, a New York dealer and former corporate raider. “The view of Monday night [when the most expensive Hirsts will be on offer] is very skeptical.”