At noon on Wednesday, the markets were trying to dig their way out of a hole that deepened earlier in the morning. All three major indexes traded in the red, with the Nasdaq Composite showing the smallest loss and the Dow Jones industrials, the largest. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow forecast for third-quarter GDP growth came in at a disappointing 1.3%. Investors are worried that the U.S. economy has reached its peak growth (6.3% and 6.7% real GDP growth in the first and second quarters, respectively). The lackluster growth estimates also are likely to raise talk of future stagflation.
Among meme stocks, losers outnumbered gainers, and Wednesday’s biggest loser was also Tuesday’s big loser. Camber Energy Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: CEI) dropped more than 50% on Tuesday and traded down by about 20% at the noon hour Wednesday. A short seller report released Tuesday absolutely blistered the company, and the CEO’s response did little to stop the bloodletting.
As we noted in our morning report on meme stocks, Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) won a U.S. Army contract valued at more than $800 million. The stock traded up as much as 10% in Tuesday’s after-hours session and was about 8% in Wednesday’s premarket. The gain had been pared to about 1.2% by noon.
Workhorse Group Inc. (NASDAQ: WKHS) has dropped by around $2 a share in the past seven and a half days. The company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer left the company last week, and its top legal officer announced his departure on Tuesday. The company also has hired new people as chief technology officer and chief administrative officer, as new CEO Richard Dauch appears to be cleaning house. A reported SEC investigation has not helped the company recover from the loss of a major contract to supply the U.S. Postal Service with thousands of new delivery vans.
The day’s biggest story may be the Form S-1 filing by Vinco Ventures Inc. (NASDAQ: BBIG). The company is registering 117.6 million shares of common at a maximum price of $6.45 each. All the shares are being issued in connection with convertible debt or warrants already issued. Vinco Ventures is not selling any shares and will not receive any proceeds from sales by the selling shareholders. The only proceeds the company gets will be the option exercise price if the warrants are exercised for cash.
Despite encouraging words from WallStreetBets investors, the share price is diving. Bullish investors are looking at a merger between Vinco and Zash Global Media and the two companies’ intention to acquire a third company, Lomotif. Another publicly traded firm, Cryptyde, will be created and spun off at the time of the merger. In another federal filing Wednesday morning, the record date for the Cryptyde spin-off was delayed by a week, from October 15 to October 22. Vinco’s chief strategy office, Brian McFadden, resigned from the company on September 23 to become president of Cryptyde.
Vinco Ventures stock traded down as much as 14% earlier in the morning to $4.77. The loss had been pared to about 9.2% in the noon hour to $5.04. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $1.11 to $12.49. The average daily trading volume is around 47.5 million shares, and only about 13.6 million had been traded thus far on Wednesday.
Workhorse stock was down about 9.4%, at $6.26 in a 52-week range of $6.21 to $42.96. The low was posted earlier in the morning. The average daily trading volume is about 7.7 million shares, with 9.6 million shares traded so far on the day.
Shares of Palantir traded up about 1.5% to $23.56 as the noon hour drew to a close. The stock’s 52-week range is $9.18 to $45.00, and the average daily trading volume is about 44.5 million shares. Nearly 95 million shares had changed hands on the day.
Camber Energy stock traded down about 19%, at $1.24 in a 52-week range of $0.33 to $4.85. The intra-day low was $1.06. The average daily trading volume is 131.7 million shares, and about 234 million had changed hands thus far.
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