Investing

Midday Meme Stock Report for 7/21: Cleveland-Cliffs, DraftKings, Meta Materials, Nio

Paul Ausick

Published: July 21, 2021 1:29 pm

Gainers vastly outnumber losers in Wednesday morning’s trading session. In the noon hour, only a handful of the meme stocks we track were trading down. By the end of the day, however, who knows what will happen.

Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT), the survivor of a reverse merger between Metamaterials and Torchlight Energy, is winning back some of the nearly 80% price drop in the stock since the merger was completed on June 25. There’s no particular reason for the share price to rise, because most of the price increase came before the merger, when Torchlight still traded on its own. The former company’s promise of a special dividend has not yet materialized for many retail investors, but hope springs eternal.

On Tuesday, shares of Nio Inc. (NYSE: NIO) dipped by more than 2% in morning trading but closed the day with a gain of the same size. The stock was climbing even more Wednesday morning. The only news of any kind that could have affected the share price is the departure of a Nio’s executive to take over as chief product officer at GM’s BrightDrop EV subsidiary. It is a plus for Nio because GM doesn’t really compete with Nio in China (yet).

DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ: DKNG) is another widely discussed and heavily traded favorite among retail investors. The company said Wednesday morning that it plans to launch a marketplace for non-fungible token (NFT) items that will allow people to buy, sell and trade sports, entertainment, and cultural collectibles using their DraftKings accounts. Two of Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest ETFs have reportedly added more DraftKings stock to their portfolios, while one has lightened its position. The net result is that the ARK funds added about 90,000 shares of DraftKings stock to their holdings.

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE: CLF) may be an unlikely meme stock, but there is little doubt that retail investors put a charge into the stock earlier this year. Since January of 2020, the company’s stock has added about 144% to its value. Since last November, the stock is up 155%, and for the year to date, shares are up about 44%. The stock spiked up about 35% between March 24 and 31, lost about half that, and spiked up more than 25% again in early June. Cliffs is expected to post seriously good results when it reports results Thursday before markets open.

Shares of Meta Materials were trading up by nearly 26%, at around $4.08, in a 52-week range of $0.42 to $21.76. Thus far on the day, more than 47 million shares had been traded, compared with a daily average of about 20.8 million.

Shares of Meta Materials were sinking by nearly 7.6%, trading at around $3.24, in a 52-week range of $0.42 to $21.76. More than 12 million shares had traded on last look, compared with a daily average of about 20.5 million.

Nio stock traded up about 5.8% to $46.74 in the noon hour Wednesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $10.91 to $66.99. The average daily trading volume is around 68 million shares, and nearly 45 million had traded in the first half of the day.

DraftKings traded up about 6.2% shortly after the noon hour, at $48.66 in a 52-week range of $30.51 to $74.38. The average daily trading volume is about 15.9 million, and nearly 11 million had traded already.

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs were up 5.3% to $21.12, in a 52-week range of $5.16 to $24.77. The average daily trading volume is around 28.5 million shares, and nearly 16 million had changed hands thus far.