U.S. equity markets opened lower Monday morning and traded solidly in the red afterward. A look at a basket of some 30 or so meme stocks, however, shows that the carnage is not so widespread. Bitcoin dropped perilously near the $30,000 level, while Dogecoin traded down more than 5% at around $0.17. Every Dow Jones industrial stock was trading in the red as the noon hour drew to a close.<\/p>\n
A solid gain was in the making for Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPCE). A Bloomberg report in the morning noted that venture capital investment in space-related companies have raised $3.6 billion in 94 deals in the first six months of 2021. In all of 2020, such companies raised a record $5.5 billion. Last week\u2019s flight that carried Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson into space is to be followed by Jeff Bezos\u2019s trip later this week. These events have raised the visibility of space stocks, and there\u2019s none spacier than Virgin Galactic.<\/p>\n
Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT), the offspring of a reverse merger between Metamaterials and Torchlight Energy, said Monday morning that it has joined Stanford University\u2019s SystemX Alliance industry affiliates program, by which member companies receive a highly leveraged and cost-effective method to sponsor pre-competitive, collaborative research at Stanford. The company said it expects to sponsor basic research conducted at the university and to have an opportunity to recruit Stanford students for internships and jobs.<\/p>\n
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC) was continuing to skid. The stock traded down more than 40% below its price on June 30. From a high in early June, the shares have lost nearly 50%. Even so, AMC stock is up nearly 1,500% since January 1. Bloomberg offers this explanation for the current selloff: \u201cThe recent selloff signals the end of the latest chapter to the meme mania where amateur investors are faced with the reality of investing in companies tied to chatroom hype instead of fundamentals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Put another way, \u201cAmateur investors, unite \u2014 you have nothing to lose by your gains!\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most consistent losers over the past two months has been Newegg Commerce Inc. (NASDAQ: NEGG). Since its IPO in late May, the shares skyrocketed to a gain of more than 400% by July 7 and plummeted nearly two-thirds of the way down the other side as of Monday morning trading. It is hard to say for sure, but a good deal of the decline may be due to the Chinese government\u2019s determination to make life more difficult for equities trading on foreign stock exchanges. The company certainly has had no news that would have moved shares up or down by these wild percentages.<\/p>\n
At midday Monday, Newegg traded down nearly 13% to $26.62. The stock\u2019s 52-week range is $2.80 to $79.07. The average daily trading volume is nearly 3.3 million shares, and thus far, about 1.4 million shares have changed hands on the day.<\/p>\n
AMC traded down about 6%, at $32.82 in a 52-week range of $1.91 to $72.62. The average daily trading volume is more than 166 million shares, and nearly 73 million had changed hands.<\/p>\n
Shares of Meta Materials sank by nearly 5%, trading at around $3.46, in a 52-week range of $0.42 to $21.76. On last look, nearly 9 million shares had traded, compared with a daily average of about 20 million.<\/p>\n
Virgin Galactic stock traded up about 4% to $31.39, in a 52-week range of $14.27 to $62.80. The average daily trading volume tops 39 million shares. More than 50 million had changed hands.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n