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Ever have one of those days where nothing made sense, but then suddenly everything made sense because you accepted that this is life in a world gone slightly mad?
For meme stocks, that was Thursday.
Despite global supply chains being a key driver of massive inflation worries, GameStop
GME,
had its first real good day in quite a while thanks to a big restock of PlayStation 5s, AMC Entertainment
AMC,
went back into the green thanks to the CEO tweeting about cheap tickets on a movie that came out seven years ago, Robinhood
HOOD,
found support from a U.S. senator bravely willing to defend the rights of online brokers to sell their order flow to market makers, and Digital World Acquisition Corp.
DWAC,
roared back to life because a former U.S. president is doing local talk radio in Seattle?
Oh, and there was also that thing where Mark Zuckerberg showed the world his new virtual fiefdom where he can pretend to be whomever he wants as long as he’s not the hated founder and CEO of Facebook
FB,
And to make sure that happens he just renamed his $900 billion tech behemoth “Meta.”
We wish we were capable of making this stuff up.
And let’s stay on Facebook/Meta for a second, because a dramatic rebrand by a vilified megacompany is always a very good place to start.
Facebook is now Meta because Zuck has a cool new product to share and he would like everyone to forget about…the recent unpleasantness.
But let our colleague Jon Swartz explain it in a better way than we can:
Facebook’s name shift was announced by Zuckerberg, chief executive and co-founder, during the company’s Connect conference Thursday. The change reflects the company’s hard pivot into what it calls the “next evolution of social technology,” where mixed reality brings people together to play games, exercise, watch concerts together, work remotely, and communicate.
One highlight from that presentation was Zuckerberg’s uncannily smooth avatar using a virtual mirror to put on a spacesuit, a visual that must have provoked giggles from Zuck’s fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk, all of whom are becoming real astronauts.
Facebook stock closed up 1.5% as the internet delighted in the awkwardness of the company’s ‘timely’ pivot.
As mentioned above, GameStop popped 5.4% for what has become a rare day of solid gains thanks to a new delivery of PS5s, and AMC eked out a late burst closing up 1.4%.
That afternoon push was due in part to Adam Aron’s very patriotic tweet announcing that his theaters will show the Clint Eastwood film “American Sniper” for $5 on Nov. 11 in celebration of Veterans Day.
Aron’s stars and stripes heave tweet fit in nicely with another major theme of Thursday’s trading day: a big bounceback for DWAC.
While the deal between the SPAC and Donald Trump’s gestating wannabe media empire Trump Media & Technology Group does not appear to have moved materially forward, DWAC has filed some new paperwork and the price had fallen back into buyable range for meme traders by Thursday morning, sitting well off its record high of $175 a share at about $70.
It closed up 12.1% on the day, ending a heavy, three-day losing streak.
But the real excitement for traders on social media appeared to be frothy expectations for a Trump interview Thursday evening on “The Ari Hoffman Show,” a radio program on Seattle’s KVI AM 570.
While the former president has been outspoken recently on issues like a possible tax on billionaires and whether or not Republicans should vote in the 2022 midterms, he is likely going to disappoint DWAC bulls on Thursday night.
For a man not exactly known for his reticence, Trump has been very quiet when it comes to DWAC and TMTG. That relative silence has likely been in deference to an SEC-mandated “quiet period” on SPAC mergers, but it’s also been a possible issue for the stock price as any boasting from Trump about the future of the combined entities would likely have boosted shares [see: Aron, Adam of AMC].
But while Trump apparently does have some experience observing quiet periods in the past, this one has been tough on his supporters and his critics.
Reddit and Twitter are full of posts hoping that Trump helps DWAC go to the moon, and some of Trump’s former White House colleagues are also wishing that something could be done to help DWAC succeed.
“I want this SPAC to do so well that it outpaces his fundraising for the Big Lie,” former Trump White House communications director and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci told MemeMoney on Thursday. “So well, in fact, that he decides to never go into politics again.”
But The Mooch is not as invested — at least literally — in DWAC as others.
When asked if he was putting his own money toward helping Trump’s SPAC go to the moon, Scaramucci replied “I’d rather buy a rattlesnake ETF.”
But he isn’t judging other investors who are throwing in with DWAC. After all, as Scaramucci more than most people can tell you, life is about experiences.
“Anyone who wants to experience another Trump bankruptcy,” he counseled, “should put their money in.”
And on the topic of putting money in, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania made it clear Thursday that he wants retail investors to keep pouring theirs into zero-commission brokerage apps like Robinhood.
Toomey, the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, introduced legislation that would protect “payment for order flow” from being banned by Securities Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler. The regulator has been coy about what he has in store for the future of a practice that has powered the retail trading boom but has been criticized for possibly not getting investors best execution on their trades.
The legislation was just what the doctor [friar?] ordered for Robinhood’s beleaguered stock price, as it would protect about half of the company’s weakened bottom line.
Robinhood shares clawed back from a Wednesday and early Thursday swoon to gain 0.09% on the day.
