After an undistinguished premarket session Monday, U.S. markets opened higher. The early gains dwindled, however. Volume was above average and advancing stocks outnumbered decliners. New highs were much more numerous than new lows. Crude oil pulled back below $82 a barrel, while Bitcoin continued to trade around $66,000 and the yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury notes remained down by about four basis points.
Monday morning’s best performers were Chinese education and tutoring stocks. They continued to trade higher, while two or three other industries also showed gains across the board. Bitcoin miners were up sharply, led by Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA), trading up almost 20%, likely due in large part to the 5% hike in Bitcoin. The rare earths and lithium industries also posted solid gains. But up most sharply might have been marijuana stocks, led by Cronos Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CRON), which was 22% higher.
Speaking of cannabis stocks, Tilray Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY) shares were up more than 14%. Based on market cap, Tilray had replaced Canopy Growth as the largest company in the industry, with a valuation of around $5.7 billion. When Canopy reported weaker than expected sales last Friday, shareholders pummeled the stock. The turnaround may be due to the inclusion of a section in a U.S. House bill that will loosen restrictions on marijuana research.
Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) traded up by as much as 7.7% Monday morning, following last Friday’s announcement that the company will begin offering non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Shiba Inu cryptocurrency. After markets close Tuesday, the company is scheduled to report third-quarter results that are weaker than the second-quarter results. Investors apparently don’t agree.
We haven’t looked at ContextLogic Inc. (NASDAQ: WISH) lately, but shares took a tumble in late October when the company’s CEO and founder sold $370,000 worth of stock. The share price has just edged above that level. Maybe this time it can stay there. The reality may be simpler: ContextLogic is heavily shorted and retail investors are gonna take a run at short sellers every now and then just to keep the shorts on their toes.
As of the noon hour Monday, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) had recovered about half its premarket loss. We covered that in our morning look at meme stocks, so we won’t repeat it here. CEO Elon Musk does know how to rev up the troops, though. Tesla was, by far, the most heavily discussed stock on WallStreetBets on Monday.
Tilray stock traded up about 14% to $12.19 as the noon hour drew to a close. The stock’s 52-week range is $6.66 to $67.00, and the average daily trading volume is 17.4 million shares. Thus far on Monday, more than 32 million shares had traded.
Shares of Coinbase traded up about 6.5%, at $359.19 in a 52-week range of $208.00 to $429.54. The average daily volume is about 4.8 million shares, and 5.8 million had already traded on the day.
ContextLogic was running higher by about 7.2%, at $5.28 in a 52-week range of $4.61 to $32.85. The average daily trading volume is around 38.5 million shares, and about 22.6 million had changed hands already.
Tesla shares were down about 2.8% to $1,188.49, in a 52-week range of $396.03 to $1,243.49. The average daily trading volume is around 21.6 million shares, and more than 24 million had been traded.
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