Investing

Midday Meme Stock Report for 11/9: Newegg, SmileDirectClub, Tesla, Virgin Galactic

Paul Ausick

Published: November 9, 2021 1:28 pm

The broad market was solidly lower at the noon hour Tuesday. Trading volume was higher than usual, and declining stocks outnumbered those posting gains, while new highs outnumbered new lows by around three to one. Crude oil added a few cents a barrel and traded briefly above $83 earlier in the morning. Bitcoin pulled back to around $66,500, while 10-year Treasury yields dipped six basis points thus far on the day.

The meme stock making the biggest move was SmileDirectClub Inc. (NASDAQ: SDC). The dental appliance maker reported weak results after markets closed on Monday, and the shares were pummeled. Analysts at Craig Hallum didn’t waste any time downgrading the stock from Hold to Sell and slashing the $6 price target to $3. More analysts are likely to follow suit.

Another big loser Tuesday was Newegg Commerce Ltd. (NASDAQ: NEGG). We haven’t written much about the company for a few months. Back in July, the company’s stock shot up by more than 100% in a couple of days on some very flimsy reasons. Still, those reasons were better than Monday’s announcement from the e-commerce company that Newegg had leased a new warehouse. That’s just not going to cost shares 20% of their value. Looking at several social media comments about the company, there appears to be some chatter about options and short sellers that failed to deliver shares on time.

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) traded up about 9% earlier in the morning, following the prior night’s release of the company’s quarterly report. The space tourism firm posted a larger than expected loss but, at the same time, said its $450,000 tickets to ride are selling faster than expected. Virgin Galactic wants to sell 1,000 tickets at that price before the space-tourism business is launched late next year. So far, the company has sold about 100.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock traded down more than 10% Tuesday morning. It is likely that the blowback from CEO Elon Musk’s proposed share sale hasn’t died back yet. It also is possible that this week’s IPO of electric pickup truck and SUV maker Rivian is weighing on shares. Rivian is looking for an IPO price of $72 to $74 a share, according to IPO Scoop. Initial reviews of the company’s R1T pickup have been outstanding, and Rivian expects to deliver 1,000 of the vehicles by the end of the year. Tesla’s Cybertruck and Ford’s F-150 Lightning are both due late this year or early next.

Shares of SmileDirectClub traded down about 21.5%, at $4.13 in a 52-week range of $3.90 to $16.08. The average daily trading volume is around 17.7 million, and nearly 31 million shares already had traded on the day.

Newegg traded down more than 15% to $15.95, in a 52-week range of $3.30 to $79.07. The average daily volume is less than a million, while more than 3 million had traded on the day.

Tesla stock traded down about 10%, at $1,046.10 in a 52-week range of $396.03 to $1,243.49. The trading volume of about 37 million was about 72% above the daily average of around 21.7 million.

Virgin Galactic traded up 7.4% to $21.36 as the noon hour came to a close Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $14.27 to $62.80, and Tuesday’s trading volume of around 19.5 million was above the daily average of around 14.5 million.