‘Meme Stocks’ Rally Again With Penny Plays Leading the Way

(Bloomberg) -- Stocks recently targeted by retail investors soared again Wednesday as millions of shares changed hands. Penny stocks with a low amount of tradeable shares lead the charge.

CPS Technologies added $188 million in market cap on Wednesday after getting $28.7 million from a Navy contract. The stock rose 104% to a record on volume more than 23 times its three-month average. Meanwhile, Reddit’s most-hyped stock, GameStop, reversed an early decline and settled around a 2.4% gain.

• Tyme Technologies more than doubled before paring gains to 93%; more than 266 million shares traded after the biotech was granted patent claims related to a Covid-19 treatment
  • TYME shares outstanding 130 million vs 72 million float
• Penny stock Sellas soared as much as 61% (trading volume over 38 million shares) after more than a dozen posts popped up across Reddit in the past 24 hours. Gains dialed back to 10% late in the day.
  • None of the posts were particularly popular, with most having upvotes -- the Reddit equivalent of a Facebook like -- in the low double or single digits. A handful alluded to upcoming clinical trial results.
• Healthier Choices Management, a vaping company and health food store operator, rose as much as 257% and more than four billion shares changed hands; the stock is now up 14%
  • The pink sheets company has 105 billion shares outstanding vs 81 billion float and trades for fractions of a penny
• Swimwear and Frederick’s of Hollywood brand retailer, Naked Brand, rose 30% (vol. >359m)
• Headphones and loudspeakers maker Koss +27%; shares outstanding 7.6 million vs float 3.8 million
• Castor Maritime +5.5% (vol. >152m)
• Corbus Pharmaceuticals +7% (vol. >46m)
• AMC Entertainment +11% (vol. >202m)
• Cannabis firm Tilray +11% after recent mentions in the WallStreetBets and PennyStocks sub-Reddits
• Peer Sundial Growers +16% also mentioned
• Retailer, Express +4.8%
• BlackBerry +1.9%

A handful of former daytrader favorites slipped. Covid-19 vaccine developer Vaxart tumbled 59% after a vaccine update. The stock had soared more than 1,500% in 2020; other stocks that were retreating included:

• Ocugen fell 13% after an 80% rally on Tuesday driven by a vaccine deal
• XpresSpa, an airport spa operator which pivoted to Covid-19 testing, fell as much as 5.8%

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• Goldman Sachs Wants to Get Cozy With Main Street and Its Money

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