What happened Shares of Cooper Tire & Rubber (NYSE: CTB) plummeted in Monday trading to close the day down 9.6% after the company reported big misses on both sales and earnings for its fiscal second quarter 2019. Expected to earn $0.50 per share on sales of $718.1 million, it instead reported only $0.18 in EPS on sales of $679.1 million. Image source: Getty Images. So what Nor was an earnings miss Cooper's only problem. The $0.18 per share profit the company reported represented a 40% drop from what Cooper had earned in the year-ago quarter, despite sales falling only 3% year over year. Unit volumes of tires shipped declined 5%. Management blamed "new and incremental tariffs this year" along with a related "ongoing decline within the new-vehicle market in China and a weak replacement-tire market in Europe," but promised that it will return to unit volume growth in 2020. Now what Unfortunately, shareholders have to wait through two more quarters before 2020 arrives -- and these could be rough quarters. "Increased U.S. tariff costs and delayed timing of anticipated commercial-truck tire price increases, as well as weakness in the China new-vehicle and Europe replacement-tire markets, are expected to impact the remainder of the year," CEO Brad Hughes said. Cooper no longer expects unit sales to grow this year -- in fact, they may well decrease. And management's forecast of a 5.9% reported margin on those sales that it does make this year implies a sizable decline from the company's 7% operating profit margin of 2018. No wonder investors sold the stock off today. 10 stocks we like better than Cooper Tire & RubberWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has quadrupled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Cooper Tire & Rubber wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of June 1, 2019 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source