All three major indexes traded in the green at lunchtime Thursday, led by the Nasdaq Composite, up about 1%. Trading volume was higher than usual, and advancing stocks outnumbered decliners. Weekly claims for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic, and there is some optimism that Congress and the president could reach an agreement on how much spending will happen under the proposed infrastructure and Build Back Better programs. President Biden has proposed a $1.75 trillion package.
Thursday is an alternative energy day among meme stocks. Two of the three most discussed stocks on WallStreetBets are electric vehicle makers. One, of course, is Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction). The company’s strong earnings report earlier this week pushed its market cap above $1 trillion and lifted the average price target by around 15% to almost $810. Also, of course, Tesla stock is trading far above that level.
Analysts Gene Munster and David Stokman over at Loup Funds are Tesla bulls, and they say in their most recent comment on the company that Tesla successfully has tested the formula to reach its long-term goal of building 20 million vehicles a year: “build the best EVs for the money at scale.”
The EV maker posting the biggest share price gain in the noon hour Thursday was Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID). Trading volume was already about five times the daily average, and the share price was up more than 20%. On Wednesday, the company announced that it will, in fact, deliver the first group of its Dream Edition of the Lucid Air to customers on Saturday.
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A third EV maker, Canoo Inc. (NASDAQ: GOEV) also posted a solid gain in Thursday trading, even though volume was light. The company Wednesday announced a battery supply deal with Panasonic for Canoo’s Lifestyle vehicle.
What all these share price moves have in common is that they follow Wednesday afternoon’s quarterly earnings report from Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F):. Ford stock was up more than 8% Thursday for a number of reasons: it performed better than rival GM during the third quarter, it beat profit projections and raised guidance, and it restarted its quarterly dividend payments with a payment of $0.10 per share beginning in the fourth quarter. Ford also has announced a number of major investments in electrifying its vehicles and expects to begin shipping its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup early in 2022. It may never be a meme stock, but shares were trading at more than double the average daily volume of 64 million shares.
Hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG) traded up by nearly 10% Thursday. The day before, the company announced a partnership with green hydrogen producer Lhyfe to develop green hydrogen plants in Europe with an operating capacity of 300 megawatts and a production plant with a capacity of one gigawatt by 2025. This is the latest in a string of cooperation deals with the likes of Phillips 66, Airbus and Korea’s giant SK Group.
As the noon hour came to a close on Thursday, shares of Lucid traded up about 36%, at $36.80 in a 52-week range of $9.60 to $64.86. More than 181 million shares had traded already on the day, far above the daily average of around 28 million.
Tesla stock traded up 3.3% to $1,071.36, in a 52-week range of $379.11 to $1,094.94. The average daily trading volume is around 20.3 million shares, and 19 million have changed hands thus far on Thursday.
Shares of Canoo were up about 9%, at $8.02 in a 52-week range of $5.75 to $24.90. The average daily volume is around 3.3 million shares, and about half that many shares had traded so far.
Plug Power stock is up 9.4% to $37.65, in a 52-week range of $13.69 to $75.49. The average daily trading volume is around 20.2 million shares, and nearly 28 million had traded.
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