Investing

Midday Meme Stock Report for 9/7: AMC, Camber Energy, Clover Health, Meta Materials

Paul Ausick

Published: September 7, 2021 1:24 pm

A new entry may have broken into the meme stock universe over the past few weeks. The stock’s share price tripled to top $1.00 a share Tuesday morning for the first time in nearly seven months. And it was trading a ton of shares.

Investors in Camber Energy Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: CEI) traded more than 270 million shares last Friday and had swapped more than 200 million by noon Tuesday. The company has had no news recently, but in early August, Camber-controlled subsidiary Viking Energy acquired a majority interest in Canada-based Simson-Maxwell for about $8.1 million. While Camber is an oil and gas exploration company, Simson-Maxwell makes and sells industrial engines, power generation products and custom energy solutions that integrate “innovative technology with superior products to contribute to global energy sustainability.”

Camber itself has not yet filed an annual report for its 2021 fiscal year that ended in March, but Viking did report second-quarter revenue of $10.7 million. Camber has 104.2 million shares outstanding, but just 25 million are included in its public float. Of those floated shares, about 3.42% are sold short.

The most interesting thing about the company is that in the 10 years since its IPO, the company has had five stock splits, four of which were reverse splits. According to data from Split History, based on Friday’s closing price of $0.83 per share, that share would have cost $1.44 million on the IPO date.

Camber has not generated much social media notice. It is hard to see the recent run-up in the share price as a short squeeze because there are so few shares in the float, there are only a tiny number sold short and the share price is so low. This could just be a moment of glory for a penny stock with an undistinguished past.

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC) was basking in the blockbuster Labor Day weekend performance of Disney’s theater-only release of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” The movie rang up a four-day ticket sale total of $90 million. No major competing releases are expected until later this month, so ticket sales are expected to dip by less than normal over the next couple of weeks.

About 15% of Clover Health Investments Corp.’s (NASDAQ: CLOV) float is sold short and the stock was generating more comments on WallStreetBets Tuesday than any other equity, including SPY. Overall, social media discussion volume was up by 170% Tuesday. Which is fine because there is no news to support a move in either direction.

Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT) is another company that has no specific news. Unfortunately for the stock’s true believers, shares traded down Tuesday, after rising by about 50% since August 20. The stock came out of the gate up about 1% in the morning but dropped to down nearly 2% in the first couple of minutes of trading.

Camber Energy traded up more than 13% at $0.94 in the noon hour Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $0.33 to $3.10, and the daily trading volume of 27.8 million shares was passed early on. Nearly 216 million shares had changed hands thus far.

AMC stock traded up about 6.7%, at $46.96 in a 52-week range of $1.91 to $72.62. The average daily trading volume is about 120 million shares, and more than 67 million had traded through the noon hour. In mid-August, AMC traded more than 170 million shares a day.

Clover Health traded up more than 15% to $10.18, in a 52-week range of $6.31 to $28.85. The average daily trading volume is around 57.5 million shares, and nearly 72 million had already traded.

Meta Materials was down about 6.1% to $5.17, in a 52-week range of $0.42 to $21.76 The average daily trading volume is around 29.3 million shares, and the stock had traded nearly 20 million.