Monday M&A, Memestocks, and the Metaverse

EV company Rivian Automotive Inc. has finally announced that its much-anticipated IPO is on the calendar. It will debut next week. 🎉⚡

It’s perfect timing, too. Rivian is coming to market at an explosive time for EV automakers. Over the last few days, $LCID and $TSLA have appreciated double-digit gains (thanks momentum investors!) That might be one reason why the company is boldly seeking a $60 billion valuation for its opening trade. At those numbers, Rivian would raise over $8 billion in its IPO.

Although Rivian’s valuation stands to change (are you taking the over or under?), numbers like these place the company among the likes of Fisker, Lordstown Motors, Lucid, and even Nio… a valuation in the low-$60 billions means Rivian isn’t far away from legacy automakers like Ford. 🤭

Amazon owns a 20% stake in Rivian (valued at $3.8 billion) and has a deal with the EV maker to develop 10,000 last-mile Amazon delivery vans by 2022. The company also launched its R1T electric pickup to market before Ford, GM, or Tesla. Ford owns about a 12% stake in Rivian.

Not too shabby for a budding EV company. 💪 Join the conversation on Stocktwits in the $RIVIAN.P thread (it’ll be changed to $RIVN on IPO date.) 🙌

Internet memes and digital money are revolutionizing the economy once again. 😅

According to Bloomberg, GameStop and “37 retail favorites” had their best day since August. Memestocks faulted Wall Street with the surge, citing Fidelity retail trading data that revealed Tesla and Lucid were the winners on volume today. 

But wait, there’s more: $SHIB.X, $ELON.X, and $FLOKI.X are all the talk in the cryptoverse after appreciating triple-digit gains this week (and collecting a lot of attention from our highly-bullish community.) 🚀

Nowadays, it feels like memecoins and retail stocks with sky-high P/E ratios are practically doubling every six days. 2021 has shown the staying power of memes, retail faves, and Stockholm Syndrome in the markets. 🤷

Coca-Cola shelled out big bucks to buy the entirety of energy drink company Bodyarmor for $5.6 billion today. 💰🤝

Coca-Cola owned a 15% stake in Bodyarmor before today, which it purchased in 2018. Since then, the brand has grown to become the #2 sports drink in the world.  Bodyarmor has seen impressive revenue growth in recent years, hitting over a billion in annual retail sales thanks to a star-studded cast of athletic investors (James Harden, Mike Trout, and Kobe Bryant.) 🌟

By positioning itself as a healthier sports drink alternative, Bodyarmor has overtaken Coke’s Powerade in the market. The acquisition hopes to offer Coca-Cola a better chance of chasing down Pepsico‘s Gatorade, which still owns 70% of the entire sports drink market. 

Bodyarmor’s Co-Founder, Mike Repole, will oversee part of Coke’s beverages portfolio (including Vitamin Water, Smart Water, and Energy Brands). He’s also reportedly chasing a chairman role for Coca-Cola. 

$KO closed down 0.35%. 

Facebook announced an ambitious rebrand last week and showed off a beta of its own digital utopia, Horizon Worlds. However, little price action was observed in $FB‘s chart.

Instead, the momentum stirred up gaming-related blockchain-based projects, including Decentraland ($MANA.X) and The Sandbox ($SAND.X). Both are up more than 200% since Meta made known its “metaverse ambitions.” 😮

Both projects are digital worlds where all assets belong to users. Users can purchase digital real estate (LAND) to develop and govern virtual properties. Among the most interesting developments are digital casinos, virtual games, museums, and a fully-online university.

These projects, which lived long lives before Facebook’s reinvention, stand in contrast to Horizon Worlds, which will likely be governed and controlled by a central entity. And crypto maxis, already skeptical of the “tyranny of Big Tech companies” are looking for its alternatives.

In short — for many crypto-conscious investors, the metaverse is already here, and they don’t want Facebook to be its sole proprietor. For more on this story, check out Stocktwits’ new newsletter, The Litepaper.

LoanDepot has been in a downward spiral since going public on Feb 11.  In an attempt to gain some traction, $LDI lit up 21.95% after beating Q3 estimates on the top and bottom line. The stock is still down 40% since inception. 

$LDI | EPS: $0.46 (vs. $0.36 expected) | Revenue: $923.8 million (vs. $887 million expected) | Link to Report

ON Semiconductor Corp surged 14.4% and closed at record highs today. 🏆 The semi reached a new quarterly sales record, increasing by 32% YoY.

$ON | EPS: $0.87 (vs. $0.74 expected) | Revenue: $1.74 billion (vs. $1.71 billion expected) | Link to Report

Chegg, Inc got chopped to shreds in after-hours trading. 🔪  $CHGG tanked 28% after missing earnings and sales expectations. Shares of the education stock are down 30.45% YTD.

$CHGG | EPS: $0.05 (vs. $0.20 expected) | Revenue: $171.9 million (vs. $174.5 million expected) | Link to Report