Shares of hot recent IPO Beyond Meat (BYND) ended lower Friday afternoon after famed short-seller Andrew Left’s Citron Research slammed the stock in a tweet, calling it “Beyond Stupid.” Citron argued that the company, which makes meat alternatives, deserves to drop some 30% from Thursday’s close to just $65 a share.
The stock lost $3.57, or 3.8%, to end the day at $89.35. It traded as low as $85.71 (-7.8%) immediately after Citron’s tweet went live.
In the tweet, Citron said Beyond Meat’s market cap now exceeds that of the entire industry, with a “superior competitor coming to market soon.” The short-selling firm also predicted the stock would fall to $65 when the company reports earnings:
$BYND has become Beyond Stupid. Most heavily traded retail stock on Robinhood, market cap now bigger than industry, and superior competitor coming to market soon. We expect $BYND to go back to $65 on earnings On retail exhaustion. Look
— Citron Research (@CitronResearch) May 17, 2019
That’s roughly back to the $65.75 that BYND closed at on May 2, its first day as a public company. The company’s IPO had only priced at $25 a share, but Beyond Meat has mostly rallied since then, reaching as high as $96.79 intraday on Thursday.
Beyond Meat is currently expected to report 15-cent-a-share loss and $40 million in sales according to a single analyst estimate compiled by FactSet.
