Midday Meme Stock Report for 11\/24: Aterian, Meta Materials, Nano Dimension, Progenity

At the opening bell, the S&P 500 was down 0.4%, the Nasdaq was down 0.8%, and the Dow Jones industrials were down 0.3%. A better-than-expected report on new claims for jobless benefits didn’t carry much weight, nor did the report on real personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the Fed’s go-to inflation index. Excluding food and energy, PCE was up 0.4% month over month in October and 4.1% year over year for the month. Personal income increased by 0.5%, disposable income rose by 0.3%, and, in current dollars, PCE rose 1.3% in October.

The end result of all that was a market trading essentially flat at noon Wednesday, although the Dow was down by about 0.3%. Energy sector stocks have much of their early gain and traded up about 0.9%, just behind the real estate sector, up 1.2%. Growth stocks were trying for a comeback, but so far, it was just a small one. Crude oil dipped a bit more since the morning to around $78.40 a barrel, and Bitcoin traded about $400 higher. Yields on 10-year Treasuries had dropped since the morning by about two basis points.

Among meme stocks, an old favorite (of ours, at least) posted the biggest gain thus far Wednesday. Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT) has lost about 10% of its value in the past month. Shares were trading down about 81% since their mid-June peak. The uptick is likely due to chatter at WallStreetBets that the long-awaited distribution of shares related to Meta’s reverse merger with Torchlight Energy will be happening next week. Okay, then.

The last time we checked in with e-commerce platform Aterian Inc. (NASDAQ: ATER) was October 22. At the time, the stock had dropped by more than 57% in a month. Two months later, the stock is down another 26.7%. There is no specific news that could be responsible for its boost.

Another stock sporting a double-digit gain in the morning was Nano Dimension Ltd. (NASDAQ: NNDM). Earlier in the morning, the company reported quarterly results showing a doubling of revenue over the past nine months and a tripling year over year. Yoav Stern, board chair and chief executive, made a brutally honest statement: “Encouraging as they are, our revenue numbers are still too small in absolute magnitude to derive any meaningful conclusions.” Equally honest are the holdings in Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest funds. ARK’s Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKW) and Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (NYSEAMERICAN: ARKQ) combined hold more than 16 million shares in Nano Dimension. On Tuesday, the former fund added nearly a million shares to its holdings.

Biotech company Progenity Inc. (NASDAQ: PROG), a  double-digit loser in the noon hour Tuesday, was a mid-single-digit loser at noon on Wednesday. The company announced that it has raised $44 million from the warrant exercises so far in the fourth quarter. But Progenity still can’t shake off investors’ displeasure with the announced at-the-market sale of $90 million new shares.

Shares of Meta Materials traded up about 11.7% in the noon hour Wednesday to $4.20. The stock’s 52-week range is $0.64 to $21.76. The average daily trading volume is around 14.3 million shares, and about 5.4 million had traded thus far on Wednesday.

Aterian traded up about 11.2% to $5.55, in a 52-week range of $3.04 to $48.99. The average daily trading volume is about 26.9 million, and about 2.5 million had traded on the day.

Shares of Nano Dimension traded up about 9.7% in the noon hour, at $5.07 in a 52-week range of $4.45 to $17.89. The average daily trading volume is around 6.4 million shares, and about 10.7 had traded already.

Progenity traded down about 4.3% to $3.82, in a 52-week range of $0.66 to $7.86. The average daily volume is about 78 million shares, and, so far on Wednesday, 19.4 million had changed hands.

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