Short sellers take a bite out of Beyond Meat as shares slump
Short sellers have sunk their teeth into Beyond Meat as shares in the plant-based meat substitute company come off the gas following its hugely successful US listing earlier this year.
Shares in Beyond Meat had surged past $200 in July, having debuted at $25 in May, but have gone steadily downhill since then.
Now short sellers are rushing to place bets that the price will drop even further, and have now their hands on almost half of its freely traded shares.
Short sellers now account for 47.2 per cent of Beyond Meat’s freely traded shares, according to Bloomberg data.
This makes Beyond Meat the second most shorted company on the Russell 1000 index, behind only Match.com owner Match Group.
Over half of Match’s freely traded shares are currently out with short sellers.
CMC Markets’ David Madden warns that, for Beyond Meat, “the momentum is clearly with the sellers.
The meat substitute firm’s stock dipped below $100 earlier this week for the first time since June, and Madden said that “breaking below big psychological numbers” like that would only add to the downward momentum.
City Index’s Ken Odeluga said the increased shorting of the stock was likely to be linked to the expiry of Beyond Meat’s “lock-up period” on 29 October, after which early buyers can cash out their shares.
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