With Ryan Cohen inflicting a crushing blow to the gamma-squeeze-driven rally in Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) shares over the past few hours, retail traders have been ravenously hunting for their next YOLO-based trading target. While a number of promising candidates are currently attempting to take the meme stock leadership mantle, an obscure clinical-stage pharma company that is trying to tackle brain disorders, MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD), just might emerge victorious. As we’ve noted in a previous post, Bed Bath & Beyond shares have been bleeding profusely ever since RC Ventures – the fund managed by GameStop’s chairman Ryan Cohen – dumped the entirety of its 11-percent-plus stake in the company at a tidy profit of $68 million. The news that BBBY has now tapped Kirkland & Ellis for its upcoming restructuring has sapped the last vestiges of euphoria from the stock, at least for now. Against this backdrop, MindMed (also known as Mind Medicine) might attract the kind of gamma-squeeze-driven gains that made BBBY such a lucrative trade for early entrants. Before going further, let’s go over critical background information. Earlier this week, Financial Times published an interesting story about Jake Freeman – a college student who turned his $27 million bet on Bed Bath & Beyond into gains of $110 million on the back of the recent retail frenzy in the stock. Of course, Jake’s uncle, Scott Freeman, is likely the proverbial “man behind the marionette” in this saga. The two constituted Freeman Capital Management LLC, which then took a 6.21 percent stake in BBBY. Interestingly, Scott Freeman has served as the Chief Medical Officer at MindMed. This brings us to the crux of the matter. The Freemans have now constituted another financial entity, called FCM MM Holdings LLC. They have also established a dedicated website by the name MindMed Zone. The website includes a brief introduction of the principal characters in FCM MM Holdings. Critically, the website also contains a letter that has been addressed to MindMed’s management and includes ideas on how the drug company might be able to effect a rebound from its current woes. The letter clearly states that the Freemans have accumulated a stake of 5.6 percent in the pharma company and then, in a move reminiscent of the BBBY play, goes on to illustrate ideas on implementing a turnaround. Interestingly, Citadel is a major investor in MindMed. While there is a discrepancy between the institutional holdings’ tabulation by CNN and Nasdaq, it is an uncontested fact that Citadel is currently one of the biggest institutional investors in the pharma company. Bear in mind that Citadel also had a major presence in BBBY stock. Of course, we should include the caveat here that this occurrence might just be a coincidence and, consequently, we will not read too much into this happenstance for now.
- $BBBY 🥇2. $MNMD 🥈3. $FAZE 🥉4. $PALI5. $AXDX6. $DRUG7. $VRNA8. $ENDP9. $CYCC10. $GBOX Source: https://t.co/cWJOwWSb0I#fintwit #wallstreetbets #stocks ( Sorted by last 2 hours ) pic.twitter.com/ytFQcHdZ6K — FINAP$E ⚡ (@fintwit_synapse) August 19, 2022 MindMed shares were up 36 percent yesterday. In today’s pre-market trading, the stock is up another 8 percent or so at the time of writing. Even so, at barely above a dollar, the stock remains a quintessential small-cap play. However, the hype around the stock continues to build, as illustrated by the tweet above, and is leading small cap stocks for now. Do you think MindMed stock is about to become the next Bed Bath & Beyond play? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
