Meme stocks soared through the first hours of Wednesday’s trading session as investors once again piled into speculative trades amid a wider choppy market.
Shares in Beyond Meat (BYND) rose by more than 95% Wednesday morning before paring gains. Krispy Kreme (DNUT) and GoPro (GPRO) rallied by more than 20% and more than 14%, respectively.
“This is a throwback to 2021 — the hope, dreams, themes, and memes kind of environment that we were navigating in that time frame,” said Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management chief equities portfolio manager Matt Stucky.
Beyond Meat, one of the newest entrants to the meme stock market, has surged by more than 900% over the past five days. The meat alternatives company on Tuesday announced a deal with Walmart (WMT) that will see Beyond Meat’s product distribution expanded throughout the big chain’s storefronts.
The stock was also added to the recently relaunched Roundhill Investments MEME ETF (MEME) on Tuesday, sparking a round of frenzied retail buying.
Retail traders bought almost $35 million in Beyond Meat stock on Tuesday, notching the stock’s biggest single-day purchase ever, according to data from Vanda Research cited by Reuters.
“[The rush into meme stocks] has really been led by, you know, these types of opportunities or in my opinion, risks in the market where companies that don’t have any positive earnings, maybe they’re losing money, really leading markets higher over the last 12 months … It is a speculative kind of risk that’s starting to build up in markets,” Stucky said.
Glazed or confused? Krispy Kreme’s signature doughnuts. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, file) · ASSOCIATED PRESS
The stock has also garnered intense short interest. As of Wednesday morning, Beyond Meat had a short float of more than 64%, according to data from FINVIZ, meaning well over half of the company’s outstanding shares have been used to bet on a fall in price — strong conditions for a short squeeze, the darling of retail meme stock trading.
Krispy Kreme, which had its biggest day of stock buys since July,…
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