Investing

Midday Meme Stock Report for 7/13: Meta Materials, MoSys, Nokia, Vertex Energy

Paul Ausick

Published: July 13, 2021 1:22 pm

Last Updated: August 10, 2021 1:43 pm

One-time leading cell phone maker Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) announced Thursday morning that it plans to raise its outlook for the 2021 fiscal year when it reports second-quarter results on July 29. The current outlook (reiterated on April 29) calls for revenue in a range of €20.6 billion to €21.8 billion ($25.3 billion to $26.8 billion).

Nokia has pushed hard into the networking equipment business and currently trails only Cisco, Ericsson and Motorola in that tech industry. In late January, the company got a share-price boost of 67% for the year to date as the stock was jolted higher when retail investors took their first run at short sellers. The stock fell back near as quickly as it rose, but since reaching a year-to-date low in early March, the stock has climbed by nearly 41%. Call option volume has soared, put option volume has withered and short interest of less than 1% makes a short squeeze a near impossibility. Nokia is going to have to perform in order to attract more buyers.

On the other side of the ledger, Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT) continues its downward trend. Since the combination of Metamaterials and Torchlight Energy was completed in late June, Meta Materials’ shares have dropped by around 63%, from a high of $9.97 on their first day of trading to around $3.60 Tuesday morning. Even the much-hyped special dividend is unlikely to turn this stock around.

Since early June, semiconductor maker MoSys Inc. (NASDAQ: MOSY) has lost about half its value. The good news is that the stock still trades at double its value on the first trading day of 2021. But the direction is wrong, despite a couple of modest upticks over the past six weeks. Less than 5% of the stock’s total float is sold short, making a short squeeze doubly difficult. The total float on the stock is just 5.4 million shares.

Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: VTNR) got a big bounce in late May following its announcement that it planned to acquire a refinery from Shell for $75 million. A couple of weeks later, the company announced that it was selling the bulk of its used lubricants business to Clean Harbors. The net effect has been that the share price has stayed relatively high, usually well above $10 a share. Until today.

Shares of Nokia jumped by 11% to trade at around $5.97 Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $3.21 to $9.79. The average daily trading volume is 38.8 million, and nearly 83 million have changed hands so far today.

Meta Materials traded down about 9.7%, at $3.56 in a 52-week range of $0.42 to $21.76 (that range was established when the company was known as Torchlight Energy). The average daily trading volume is about 18.6 million shares, and nearly 22 million have changed hands by the end of the noon hour Tuesday.

MoSys stock traded down 8.6% to $4.85 in the noon-hour Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $1.32 to $10.75, and the average daily trading volume is about 6.7 million. Just 275,000 shares had traded so far Tuesday.

Shares of Vertex Energy traded at around $9.84, down 6.5%, in the noon-hour Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week range is $0.40 to $14.32, and nearly 14 million shares are traded every day. Tuesday’s trading has been light, with just over 1 million shares changing hands.

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