Yes, generally speaking it sends a negative message, even though from a technical perspective (market cap), nothing changes. It boils down to the rationale or meaning, not the action. The NVGN reverse is a perfect example.
Some light reading...
http://www.thepatternsite.com/StockSplits.html
https://finance.zacks.com/reverse-stock-split-good-bad-2298.html
https://investorplace.com/2017/01/three-stock-splits-that-could-be-time-bombs/#.WgQdSduZP1I
http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:181000/datastream/PDF/view