Facebook Renaming Itself To Meta Causes 18% Spike In Unrelated Stock
Facebook Inc.’s (FB) announcement of its name change to Meta caused the shares of an unrelated company with a similar name, Meta Materials Inc. (MMAT), to surge on Thursday.
What Happened: Shares of Meta Materials, a Canada-based materials technology company, gained 4.8% in the regular trading session to $4.56 and further rose almost 18% in the after-hours session to $5.38.
The stock surged as investors seemed to have confused Meta Materials with Facebook’s new name.
Meta Materials is unrelated to Facebook. The company says on its website that its technology platform encompasses three core capabilities - holography, lithography, and wireless sensing.
The company’s CEO George Palikaras took to Twitter to welcome Facebook to the Metaverse.
On behalf of @Metamaterialtec I would like to cordially welcome @Facebook to the #metaverse. #GoBeyond $MMAT #AR #VR Meta, meet META® :-) https://t.co/8gOgkYTvSl pic.twitter.com/2i2PMKwzFA
— George Palikaras (@palikaras) October 28, 2021
Why It Matters: The rally in shares of Meta Materials is similar to the surge in shares of Signal Advance Inc. (SIGL) in January after Tesla Inc. (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk tweeted a message of support for the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Investors also mistakenly bought shares of a Chinese company called Zoom Technologies Inc. (ZTNO) when the more familiar video conferencing platform Zoom Video Communications Inc. (ZM) went public in April 2019.
Meta Materials has attracted interest from Reddit's r/WallStreetBets forum and other online investment communities as the stock is seen as a potential short squeeze candidate.
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This confusion certainly demonstrates that not all share purchases are made with much analysis or research. Emotions and crowd following are still major drivers. Compare that to the group dynamics of a quantity of steaks on the hoof. (a stampede.) Quite a bit of similarity.