Monday’s big winner among meme stocks has got to be Torchlight Energy Resources Inc. (NASDAQ: TRCH). The shares are up more than 40% in the noon hour and have increased by more than 290% so far in the month of June alone. For the year to date, the stock is up more than 1,100%.
At the end of December, the oil & gas exploration and production company had a market cap of around $600 million. That has now doubled, just as it doubled from $300 million between October and December.
In the wee hours of Monday morning, a poster on Reddit’s r/TRCH group did some cheerleading: “Let’s hit $20 on Monday and $100 on Tuesday… TORCH THE SHORT…”
The leap in Torchlight’s share price is likely due in large part to a short squeeze. As of May 28, 12.5% of the company’s float was sold short and among those short sellers, at least some probably held relatively large positions that they had to cover at a much higher price.
Another likely beneficiary of a short squeeze is ContextLogic Inc. (NASDAQ: WISH), trading up more than 20% Monday. Shares traded up about 5% in the noon hour Friday but closed the day with a gain of just 1.5%.
The rally in Torchlight may peter out before the rally in ContextLogic. Call options at $10.00 are up 75% on Torchlight shares with a volume of 26,051 contracts. Call options on ContextLogic at $14.00 are up by 195% and options at $20 traded up by 240% Monday with a volume of nearly 41,000 contracts.
On the downside, Senseonics Holdings Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: SENS) which posted a share price dip of 12.6% last week is trading down by around 7% at noon Monday. Call option volume is down at every price point while volume on put options at $3.00 has risen by 20% to 2,120 contracts.
One of the originators of the meme stock trade, AMC International Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC) is trading down by more than 5.5% Monday. Shares dipped about 0.9% on Friday after jumping by more than 8% on Thursday. All the options action on Monday is on the put side.
Torchlight stock traded up more than 50% at $9.44 at the end of Monday’s noon hour in a 52-week range of $0.21 to $10.88. The high was posted earlier Monday and averaged daily trading volume of around 16 million shares has ballooned to more than 255 million so far today.
Shares of ContextLogic traded up about 18% at $13.44 in a 52-week range of $7.52 to $32.85. Average daily trading volume on the stock is around 30 million shares and volume as of noon Monday has reached 219 million.
Senseonics has dropped about 6.5% at last look to trade at $3.23 in a 52-week range of $0.35 to $5.56. The average daily trading volume is around 29.3 million with a total of about 23.6 million changing hands so far on Monday.
AMC stock has dropped about 6.2% to trade at around $55.80 in a 52-week range of $1.91 to $72.62. The average daily trading volume on the stock is 152.6 million and 142.3 million shares have been traded so far Monday.
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