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beyond meat Stock prices pared back their gains on Wednesday, briefly falling into negative territory as meme stocks stalled.
The food company known for its plant-based burgers and sausages was up just 15% in midday trading Wednesday after soaring 112% in mid-market trading. Tuesday’s closing price was $3.62, but the stock reached a high of $7.69 during trading. It last rose 14% to above $4.
This is the latest development in an unusual week for the company. Shares rose more than 127% on Monday after Roundhill Investments, a developer of thematic ETFs, added its name to the Roundhill Meme Stocks ETF (MEME).
This decision appears to have had the added effect of prompting a short squeeze in the stock price as investors rushed to cover their positions. More than 63% of tradable shares were sold short, according to FactSet data.
On Tuesday, Beyond Meat soared 146% in its best day ever after announcing it would expand distribution. walmart‘s store.
Beyond Meat, performance year-to-date
Beyond Meat’s stock price has long been under pressure. It made its public debut in 2019 and soared to more than $230 per share, but has since become a penny stock. Over the past five years, the company’s stock price has fallen by more than 47% in 2021, 81% in 2022, 27% in 2023, and more than 57% in 2024. By 2025, it will have fallen by more than 3%.
The latest bad news for the company came last week, when its shares fell more than 67% to end the week at just 65 cents after Beyond Meat announced it had completed a debt transaction.
But this week’s resurgence is reminiscent of the height of the pandemic, when retail traders used online bulletin boards like Reddit’s WallStreetBets to orchestrate moves behind the scenes of high-risk, aggressive trades.
Bank of America said Beyond Meat was a stock to watch on Reddit in 2021, but it ended the year in the red.
Beyond Meat’s resurgence could be the latest sign of a frothy market that is inexorably rising despite soaring valuations and concerns about a potential artificial intelligence bubble. In fact, Round Hill shut down the meme ETF at one point due to lack of interest. It returned earlier this month as retail traders returned to the bull market.
After someone on WallStreetBets said they bought 10,000 shares of Beyond Meat at $7.50, one commenter said Wednesday: “It’s already down 7,000 shares, that’s crazy.”
“When BYND stock is coming back, you know the economy is crazy,” another said.
