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Confusion Sparks Meta Materials Spike After Facebook Name Change

Confusion Sparks Meta Materials Spike After Facebook Name Change

Retail trader favorite Meta Materials Inc. rallied Friday as investors apparently mistook it for Facebook Inc. after the heavyweight rebranded itself as Meta Platforms.

The Canadian material-science firm, which trades under the ticker MMAT, spiked as much as 24% before trimming gains to 3.7% at 7:24 a.m. in New York. The $1.3 billion Nova Scotia-based company was among the most actively traded stocks with more than 1.35 million shares changing hands. 

Confusion Sparks Meta Materials Spike After Facebook Name Change

Facebook’s re-christening as Meta Platforms Inc. took Wall Street and social media by storm on Thursday as the tech company positioned itself to double down on the metaverse. The company is completely separate from Meta Materials, though the confusion appeared to leak over to the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF, ticker META. The ETF rose 1.9% on Thursday in its most active trading day since a Summer debut.

Meta Materials joined retail trader favorites, known as meme stocks, like AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and GameStop Corp. this year as individuals hunted for shares that had relatively high amounts of short interest. The stock was among the most mentioned on day trader chatroom Stocktwits over the last day, but paled in comparison to excitement surrounding Lucid Group Inc. and Digital World Acquisition Corp.

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