After a good start Thursday morning, the three major U.S. equities indexes ended the day with losses. The Dow Jones industrials closed down 1.6%, the S&P 500 was off by 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.4%. Weaker economic data, disappointing earnings reports (looking at you Bed Bath & Beyond and CarMax), political fighting over infrastructure spending, and the end of the calendar quarter all figured into the declines.
Friday was off to a better start. Yields on 10-year Treasuries dipped below 1.5%, and Bitcoin traded up about 9.6%. Oil and natural gas traded lower as well.
Among the meme stocks we track, Thursday was a bit better than it was for the overall market. Friday was off to a good start as well, particularly for bitcoin-mining stocks. Bitcoin is on track to add about 20% over the past two sessions and trades at around $47,500. Also on Thursday, a couple of the old-line meme stocks put up some good numbers.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC) added more than 7% on Thursday, and shares traded up another 4% at $39.60 in Friday’s premarket. The company announced on Thursday that it had exercised an option to repurchase $35 million in secured notes due in 2026. Including principal and unpaid and accrued interest, the total cost to redeem the notes was $41.3 million. AMC said its annual interest cost has been reduced by $5.25 million as a result.
CEO Adam Aron took the occasion to note that, in addition to all the steps AMC is taking, “the upcoming movie slate is incredibly exciting, and studios currently seem to be re-committing to an exclusive theatrical window.”
GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) closed down about 0.3% on Thursday. That may not seem like a winner, but shares had traded down about 5.4% early in the day. GameStop had no specific news, but a war of words between fee-free trading app Robinhood and Citadel Securities, which buys about half of Robinhood’s order flow, must have appeared as a good omen for GameStop. The stock traded up about 1.5% in Friday’s premarket to $178.05.
Farmmi Inc. (NASDAQ: FAMI) traded more than 1.3 billion (not a typo) shares on Thursday, and the share price rose by 36% to close at around $0.46. The China-based supplier of food products had no specific news, so we have to assume that the stock’s low price was attractive to a lot of day traders who have figured out how to profit on stocks like this.
Lordstown Motors Corp. (NASDAQ: RIDE) announced a deal to sell its assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, to Foxconn for $230 million in cash. The electric pickup truck maker also sold $50 million in stock to the Taiwan-based maker of Apple’s iPhones and other tech products. Foxconn also received warrants to purchase an additional 1.7 million shares of Lordstown stock at $10.50 a share. Lordstown stock closed up nearly 8.5% on Thursday and traded up another 8.7% in Friday’s premarket session.
Foxconn has committed to assembling electric vehicles in the United States and had been looking for a location to build a new plant. Foxconn already has a deal to assemble Fisker EVs beginning in 2023, and now, Lordstown’s Endurance pickup at the same plant. Foxconn also has been rumored as a potential builder of the also-rumored Apple Car.
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