U.S. markets appear to be on their way to a positive opening on Monday, with all three major indexes up about a third of a point. The Federal Reserve begins its two-day meeting on Tuesday and is expected to leave interest rates unchanged. However, the central bank is also expected to announce that it plans to begin tapering its purchases of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities over a period of about eight months. Yields on 10-year Treasuries were up about two basis points Monday morning, while crude oil traded above $84 again and Bitcoin was up about 1.5% to $61,863.
While Better Therapeutics is not a meme stock (yet), it’s hard to ignore its premarket burst to a share price increase of 97% before the stock even begins trading. The biotech firm comes public Monday morning in a SPAC deal with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. II (NASDAQ: BTTX). After closing Friday at $9.30, shot up to more than $17 before pulling back to around $14.20.
Bitcoin miner Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: GREE) jumped nearly 34% on Friday to close at $27.19. The stock traded down by less than 1% in Monday’s premarket. The company has had no specific news since announcing expansion plans two weeks ago.
Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID) delivered its first vehicles to customers on Saturday, making good on a promise to deliver its new Lucid Air vehicles in October. The share price has jumped by about a third since the company announced the deliveries last Thursday, and it traded up nearly 6% in Monday’s premarket. More than 220 million shares were traded Friday.
Bakkt Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKKT) closed up 66% on Friday, after posting a new 52-week high of $42.88. The company’s digital asset platform offers people a convenient way to buy, sell, store and spend cryptocurrencies. Two big deals, one with Mastercard and the other with Fiserv, were announced last week, and Bakkt’s share price has more than tripled since then. The stock traded down about 9.7% in Monday’s premarket.
Meta Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: MMAT), which was momentarily confused with the newly adopted name for Facebook (Meta Platforms), filed its definitive proxy statement for a shareholders’ meeting scheduled for December 3. According to the filing, the company will elect seven directors for one-year terms, approve KPMG as its independent accounting firm and approve its stock incentive grant plan for 2021.
Progenity Inc. (NASDAQ: PROG) stock dropped about 7% on Friday and traded up less than 1% in Monday’s premarket. That’s not why the company is being included here. Progenity is once again Fintel’s leading candidate for a short squeeze this week. Nearly 36% of the company’s total float is sold short. Since posting a recent high last Wednesday morning, the stock has dropped about 18%.
Another leading short squeeze candidate is Bit Digital Inc. (NASDAQ: BTBT). The stock closed up nearly 42% on Friday and traded down nearly 17% in Monday’s premarket. The New York-based crypto-mining firm has had no specific news for about two weeks and is Fintel’s fourth most likely short squeeze victim this week. About 27.5% of the company’s float is sold short and the cost to borrow shares has soared to nearly 110%.
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