Meme Stock Movers for 9/10: Camber Energy, Clover Health, GameStop, Root, Support.com

Investing

Published: September 10, 2021 9:20 am

The major indexes closed lower on Thursday, adding to the short week’s woes. The better news is that the indexes were trading higher by about half a point in Friday’s premarket session.

Among meme stocks, Thursday belonged to Camber Energy Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: CEI). More than 286 million shares were traded and the share price shot up more than 31%. Short interest in the company is modest (3.4% of the float), so a short squeeze was not the reason. A posting on the WallStreetBets subreddit appears to have conflated a press release issued by Camber on August 24 with one issued Thursday by ESG Clean Energy. The two press releases are announcing the same agreement. We looked at the company in a bit more detail earlier this week.

More than 13 million shares had traded in Friday’s premarket, and the stock was up more than 9% earlier. Shares were trading at $1.36, up almost 4% from Thursday’s close of $1.30.

Clover Health Investments Corp. (NASDAQ: CLOV) dropped about 1.5% on Thursday and traded down another 1.3% in Friday’s premarket to $9.18. The company had no news Thursday but it was more often mentioned on social media than any other company. Clover Health had a firm lead in Friday social media chatter as well.

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) added less than 1% to its share price on Thursday and was trading up by a like amount in Friday’s premarket. The company took a lot of heat from analysts for its poor quarterly results and the cavalier attitude it took toward investors during its Wednesday conference call.

Loop Capital’s Anthony Chukumba told CNBC’s Squawk Box Thursday that GameStop’s conference call was “shameful” and “disrespectful to their shareholders.” He also took a shot at CEO Ryan Cohen, who is charged with turning the company’ around: “At some point we are going to have to come to the realization that the emperor has no clothes. There’s no strategy and there’s no turning this business around.” How much more would the shares have gained if Chukumba had kept quiet?

Property and casualty insurer Root Inc. (NASDAQ: ROOT) added 5.75% to its share price on Thursday and traded up another 3% Friday morning at $6.82. Shares were up by nearly twice that earlier in the premarket session. More than 31 million shares changed hands Thursday, nearly five times the daily average. The company had no news and flies under the radar of social media.

Support.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRT) jumped more than 12% on Thursday but had given about 2% back so far Friday morning. The stock was trading at around $25.08. Friday’s special stockholders’ meeting will determine the fate of the company’s proposed merger with bitcoin miner Greenidge. Since the merger was announced in March, Support.com’s share price has jumped from around $2 to around $26 as of Thursday’s closing bell.