Major U.S. market indexes closed lower on Tuesday as investors sat tight, waiting for the Consumer Price Index report and the earnings report from JPMorgan, now the sort-of, unofficial kick-off to quarterly earnings seasons. The country’s biggest bank beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines, resulting in a tiny jolt to index futures that were already trading slightly higher.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s big stock story was not among our basket of meme stocks. Rather, it was the SPAC IPO of iron-flow battery maker ESS Inc. (NASDAQ: GWH). The company began trading publicly on Monday at around $8.50. Shares closed at $10.42 on the first day of trading and more than doubled on Tuesday to close at $23.80, up about 128% for the day. Shares traded down about 5.5% in Wednesday’s premarket, at around $22.50.<\/p>\n
In late September, ESS signed a deal with Softbank’s SB Energy to supply 2 gigawatts of its iron-flow batteries for $300 million. The storage capacity of the batteries is large enough to supply 50,000 homes for a full day. ESS cannot become a proper meme stock until it has enough shares sold short to provide an opportunity for retail investors to threaten (at least) to squeeze the short sellers.<\/p>\n
ESS raised some $308 million in the SPAC merger, including a PIPE investment led by such big names as Fidelity, Koch, Softbank and others.<\/p>\n
Viking Energy, a majority-owned subsidiary of Camber Energy Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: CEI), last week assigned all its interests in another energy producer, Ichor Energy, to TO Ichor 2021. According to Ichor’s June-quarter earnings report, the company’s assets totaled $822.45 million. Viking acquired its interests in Ichor in December of 2018. Those interests comprised approximately 58 producing wells, 31 saltwater disposal wells, 46 shut-in wells and four inactive wells. The transaction apparently repaid Ichor for a term loan made to Viking in December 2018 and removed some $66 million in Viking\/Camber debt. Camber stock dropped by about 11.7% on Tuesday and traded up about 3.5% in Wednesday’s premarket.<\/p>\n
Lordstown Motors Corp. (NASDAQ: RIDE) added more than 7% to its share price on Tuesday. The company had no specific news Tuesday, but Wednesday morning announced that it had appointed a new chief financial officer, Adam B. Kroll, who joined hydrogen-powered truck maker Hyzon in March of 2020 as chief administrative officer. Lordstown’s stock added about 1.4% in Wednesday’s premarket trading.<\/p>\n
Vinco Ventures Inc. (NASDAQ: BBIG) jumped by nearly 20% on Tuesday and traded at $6.70, up another 5.2%, in Wednesday’s premarket session. The company has had no specific news since last week, but WallStreetBets investors were pumped Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
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