Reddit Stocks: What meme stocks are trending today? – July 6, 2023

US futures fall

• Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.8%
• S&P 500 is down 0.8%
• Nasdaq 100 is down 1%

US futures are set to open lower today, following Asian and European indices, as global markets bet on more rat hikes in the wake of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting in June that were released yesterday. They reaffirmed its hawkish stance and reinforced the idea more rate hikes are to come, while simultaneously heightening recession fears. The minutes revealed the decision to leave rates unchanged last month was not a unanimous decision to show some believed it shouldn’t have taken its foot off the gas.

Fears of more rate hikes are only being fuelled further this morning after the ADP employment change revealed private businesses added 497,000 jobs in June. That marked a significant acceleration from the 278,000 jobs added in May and was the biggest jump in over 16 months! It was considerably more than the 228,000 additions forecast by economists. ‘Consumer-facing service industries had a strong June, aligning to push job creation higher than expected,’ said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. Annual pay was up 6.4% from last year.

That is being partly countered by figures that showed initial jobless claims rose 248,000 in the week to July 3, accelerating from the 236,000 increase we saw the week before and coming in just above the forecast of 245,000.

That economic data comes ahead of the JOLTS job openings and PMI figures due out this morning.

Rising tensions between the US and China continue to rattle markets. China is curbing exports of key metals used in high-tech applications such as semiconductors and electric vehicles in retaliation to the White House’s decision to ban exports of advanced AI chips to the country. A top Chinese trade minister, Wei Jianguo, has warned this was ‘just a start’, sparking fears that restrictions will be expanded to other metals or industries. The move comes as US treasury secretary Janet Yellen visits Beijing this week. There are also fears that we will see an escalation on the US side too amid reports yesterday that Washington is considering imposing restrictions on US cloud computing companies like Microsoft and Amazon to limit or prevent their services being provided in China.

Most discussed Reddit stocks

Below is a list of the top 10 most mentioned US stocks on the WallStreetBets thread on Reddit over the last 24 hours, according to data from Quiver Quantitative. Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and other instruments have been excluded:

1. Tesla
2. Visa
3. Meta
4. NVIDIA
5. Rivian
6. Apple
7. C3.ai
8. Microsoft
9. Mullen Automotive
10. Virgin Galactic

Most active US stocks before the bell

Below are the most active stocks with a valuation of at least $500 million before the bell, based on trading data taken from Bloomberg:

1. Marathon Digital
2. Nikola
3. Tesla
4. Rivian
5. Lucid Group
6. Riot Platforms
7. Genius Sports
8. Meta
9. PDC Energy
10. Carnival

US premarket winners and losers

Here are the stocks worth at least $500 million experiencing the sharpest movements in premarket trade, according to data from Bloomberg:

Top US stocks to watch

Meta is up 1% and at fresh 18-month highs after launching its new app named Threads, which is designed to directly compete with Twitter. The app managed to get 10 million to join the app within the first seven hours, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Thread account. People can log in straight away user their Instagram credentials, giving it a large pool of users to target with ease. Zuckerberg will also be hoping to attract Twitter users that have become unhappy with the platform, which has over 300 million users, since Elon Musk took it over. The fact that it is ad-free, at least for now, could also appeal. Zuckerberg has said keeping the platform ‘friendly’ will be key to its success and believes there will be a ‘public conversations app with 1 billion-plus people on it’.

Microsoft is up 0.3% at $339.16 after Morgan Stanley hiked its target price from $335 to $415 which, if hit, would see Microsoft join the $3 trillion club. The broker named the stock as its Top Pick amongst large cap software companies and believes generative AI will significantly expand the scope of its business. It said its valuation remains reasonable despite the AI-induced surge we have seen in 2023.

TSMC said it does not expect to suffer from the news that China is curbing exports of key metals needed for high-tech products like semiconductors and electric vehicles. However, that is failing to prevent the slide we saw yesterday from continuing today, with the company’s US shares down 2.1% and at one-month lows. The Taiwanese company is major supplier to a wide range of US tech companies, from Apple to NVIDIA.

Apple is down 0.9% and has dropped back below that $3 trillion valuation it earned when it hit all-time highs last week.

NVIDIA is down 0.7%. The chipmaker held up well amid the selloff in chip stocks yesterday as markets became worried that the industry is not only facing restrictions on where they can sell chips from home but also facing a threat of being able to secure the vital materials they need to build their products thanks to the new curbs imposed by Beijing. But the pressure remains on today.

Tesla is down 0.9% after hitting nine month highs yesterday. Regulators have asked Tesla for updated responses and new data regarding a probe looking into its Autopilot system. A letter was sent by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on July 3 and wants answers by July 19.

Xpeng is own 1.2%. Co-president and vice chairman Brian Gu was quoted by local media as forecasting growth in deliveries in the second half of 2023, rising to 15,000 in the third quarter and 20,000 in the fourth. That would be welcome considering it delivered 8,620 cars in the second quarter and just 7,002 in the first.

Meanwhile, 16 car companies, including NIO, Xpeng, BYD and Geely, attended a ceremony yesterday to agree to maintain fair competition and not stoke abnormal pricing in a signal that the price war that has erupted this year could be coming to an end. Tesla was the only foreign company to sign the pledge. NIO is down 1.8% this morning.

Rivian is down 2.3% this morning. The company rallied to their highest level in over four months yesterday, causing a surge in volumes and sending the RSI deep into overbought territory, after starting to ship the first electric vans to Europe being produced for its largest shareholder and customer Amazon. That will see the first 300 vans deployed in Germany over the coming weeks. Rivian said it is focused on delivering the 100,000 vans ordered by Amazon by the end of this decade but that it hopes to start making vans for other companies going forward. That prompted DA Davidson to upgrade the stock to Neutral from Underperform and raise its price target to $18 from $11. Needham also welcomed the update, swiftly behind the news Rivian delivered more cars than anticipated in the second quarter, and upped its view to $28 from $26. CEO RJ Scaringe also told Bloomberg yesterday that the supply chain is much healthier now than it was in the second quarter, which should help it ramp-up production as it tries to produce 50,000 vehicles this year. ‘We want to make sure we over-deliver on our numbers, over-deliver on our targets,’ he said.

Nikola is up 2.2% before the bell. The startup revealed yesterday that it delivered 111 trucks in the second quarter of 2023, up from the 64 shipped in the first. Production dropped to just 33 trucks in the second from the 63 produced in the first, with sales rising as it reduced inventory. Of total deliveries in the quarter 45 were sold wholesales and 66 through retail channels. CEO Michael Lohscheller said the company is ‘witnessing a remarkable surge in momentum’. That update helped reverse pressure that was coming from news it is liquidating its battery supply subsidiary named Romeo Power. The company is due to report earnings on August 4.

Lucid is down 2.7% after rising for seven consecutive sessions, having climbed to its highest level in over five weeks. Volumes have been elevated during the rally but have been on the decline recently to suggest it is running out of steam. A new deal with British luxury car firm Aston Martin has been the catalyst to propel the stock higher.

Mullen Automotive is another small electric carmaker that is stirring discussion amid the uptick in interest in the broader sector, with the firm up another 68% after popping a staggering 69% yesterday! The company, which is a tiny player with a valuation of just $110 million, is still languishing near all-time lows despite the recent surge. Retail traders are taking an interest after Mullen said yesterday it has retained a law firm to ‘combat naked short selling activities’. It believes it ‘may have been the target of a market manipulation scheme involving naked short selling’ and is now investigating. Over 16% of its float is shorted, according to the latest data from Fintel. That announcement caused record trading volumes in the stock yesterday, with almost 1.4 billion shares trading hands. That compares to its 100-day average of just 71 million. Mullen announced last month that it sold 22 of its electric cargo vans to Randy Marion Automotive Group and booked its first quarterly revenue of $308,000 in the three months to the end of June.

Exxon Mobil is down 1.7% after warning yesterday that it expected a sharp drop in earnings in the second quarter thanks to lower natural gas prices and weaker refining margins, dragging down other oil stocks.

AT&T is among the most traded stocks before the bell after Barclays nudged-down its price target to $17 from $18 and maintained an Equal Weight rating on the telecoms giant. The stock is up 0.1% at $16.09.

Affirm is down 5.7% at $14.49 after being downgraded to Underweight from Neutral by Piper Sandler, which is worried about margin deterioration and increased competition for the buy-now-pay-later provider. It left its target price unchanged at $11.

JetBlue Airways is down 1.4% after it said it would bend to a judge’s ruling and end an alliance with American Airlines in order to save its proposed takeover of Spirit Airlines. JetBlue said it disagrees with the court order but that it will not appeal the ruling. JetBlue is now ending its three-year partnership with American Airlines, which saw the pair pool revenue and co-ordinate flights.

Cryptocurrency stocks Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital are both up over 1.1% and following bitcoin higher. Coinbase is down 0.3%.

Virgin Galactic is down 1.8% today and being heavily traded before the bell. The company has been under the spotlight since completing its first commercial spaceflight, which prompted a surge in trading volumes. However, volumes have been trending downward over the past four sessions to suggest interest is waning, although they remain well above what we saw before the flight was completed.

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