SpaceX stock, like its iconoclast CEO Elon Musk, garners a lot of attention. A recent JPMorgan report helped quantify just how much.
Wednesday evening, JPMorgan analyst Arun Jain published his list of "most hyped stocks on social media." SpaceX checked in at number four, behind Lithium Americas, Boyd Gaming, and Advanced Micro Devices. Insight Digital Partners II, Rocket Lab, Meta Platforms, Kodiak AI, Atlas Energy Solutions, and Micron Technology rounded out the top 10.
That is a hodgepodge of companies across industries ranging from energy services to AI, with market values from roughly $200 million (Insight Digital) to $2 trillion (SpaceX).
Interestingly, short interest, which is the amount of stock borrowed and sold short by investors betting on price declines relative to the amount of stock available to trade, doesn't correlate with hype. Short interest is all over the place among the 10. Insight Digital essentially has no short interest. More than 30% of Atlas Energy shares available to trade have been sold short. (A short interest of 3% to 5%, depending on the size of the company, is relatively normal.)
The reasons for the hype, which are based on JPMorgan's social media score, are likely as varied as the industries or the short interest. Meta, for instance, just released its Muse AI agent, which has generated a lot of buzz. Semiconductor stocks have been in focus since the early-year run-up and Summer swoon. SpaceX, of course, is tied to Elon Musk, and anything he does gets a lot of attention.
What hype probably means most for investors is higher volatility. Coming into Thursday trading, the 10 stocks were up an average of about 6% over the past month. (The S&P was up less than a percent.) But the range of outcomes was very wide. AMD stock was up 34%. Kodiak stock was down 21%.
Ultimately, earnings and earnings growth determine any stock's direction. Jain's hype list, however, can help investors brace for and understand short-term stock volatility.
Things were quiet to start Thursday. SpaceX stock was down 0.2% in premarket trading at $148.06, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.
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