Shares of plant-based meat company Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) have nearly doubled in value by midday on Monday in heavy volume trading.
BYND is up 83.6% at $1.19 by 1:05pm ET. The stock rose as much as 92.3% to a session high of $1.25.
Nearly 610M shares have changed hands, nearly 31 times its three-month average trading volume. Short interest on the stock is 51.58%.
Wall Street and Seeking Alpha analysts have rated the stock “SELL,” while SA Quant has rated it “STRONG SELL.”
BYND stock has lost over 73% of its value so far this year, while the benchmark S&P index has risen 13.3%.
Seeking Alpha contributor Elephant Analytics wrote in their October 17 article that even though the company is reducing its net debt by over $800M through its recent debt exchange offer, they still believe that the intrinsic value of its common stock is zero.
Seeking Alpha contributor Dilantha De Silva wrote in his October 14 report that he is convinced the latest debt settlement is part of BYND’s survival mechanism. He said the company is trying to buy more time to stay afloat without filing for Chapter 11 protection.
Seeking Alpha contributor Henrik Alex recently began coverage on the company with a “SELL” rating and noted that while the debt conversion and sell-off reduced BYND’s enterprise value from about $1.3B to $0.7B, it continues to trade at a premium to related industries like AgTech or Food Processing.