Beyond Meat’s sugar high fades as meme surge cools off

Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC and Reuters contributed to this report.

Beyond Meat’s wild ride hit the brakes Wednesday. The stock, which spiked as much as 112% intraday to $7.69 after Tuesday’s $3.62 close, briefly flipped red before settling a bit above $4.

What lit the fuse: Roundhill Investments added BYND to its Roundhill Meme Stock ETF on Monday, a move that helped trigger a short squeeze as skeptics scrambled to cover. (Short interest recently sat around the mid-60% range of free float.) The frenzy followed a two-day moonshot — including Tuesday’s 146% pop on news of expanded distribution at Walmart — and echoes the Reddit-fueled surges of 2021.

Context check: Beyond Meat’s fundamentals are still wobbly. The company hasn’t posted a quarterly profit in years, demand for faux meat has cooled, and the stock remains a shadow of its 2019 peak above $230. After a brutal slide to $0.65 last week on a debt deal and dilution, the rebound looks more like momentum and positioning than a sudden shift in the business.

Traders may love the sizzle, but for now the story is classic meme math — ETF inclusion + heavy shorts + viral buzz = fireworks, followed by whiplash.