How Beyond Meat became the market's latest meme-stock darling

• This post originally appeared in the First Trade newsletter.
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Good morning and welcome to First Trade. Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to gin up a bidding war, and stock investors seem to think a sale is a great idea. Maybe they want "Westworld" back on HBO Max.

Rundown

• Gold plunges the most in 12 years. It was looking overextended at record highs, but sheesh. To make matters worse, billionaire Bill Gross told us the top is in.
• Tesla reports earnings today. Investors are anxiously awaiting any updates on robotaxis and AI.
• Could a credit crunch hit stocks? BofA thinks so, naming credit "cockroaches" as one of the five top risks to the S&P 500 right now.

But first, a blast from the past.

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Market musings

Beyond Meat's got some heat

It's 2019. You get out of an "Avengers: Endgame" screening and pop your earbuds in. You like this up-and-coming artist, Billie Eilish, who seems pretty promising. You fire up a new app called TikTok. You can't figure out how it's different from Vine, but everyone seems to be into it.

You pop into a local eatery and order one of those new plant-based Beyond Meat burgers that everyone's talking about. The company is valued at $14 billion. It doesn't taste great, but you're told it's the future of food.

Fast-forward to the present day. Beyond Meat is worth less than $1 billion, and was a penny stock until very recently. Sales are a fraction of what they were. No, this is not some dystopian reality. The fact is, the competition stacked up against Beyond, and demand for meat alternatives waned.

But something has shifted in the stock this week. Shares surged 128% (to $1.47) on Monday, on trading that was roughly 70 times the average. It followed that up on Tuesday with a 146% increase (to $3.62) on even more volume. What gives?

Well, it turns out that a retail investor named Dimitri Semenikhin (screen name: Capybara Stocks) has been buying up all the Beyond shares he can find. He says he now owns about 4% of the company's outstanding stock, and he posted about it on Reddit.

Given the fact that Beyond already carried the natural characteristics of a meme stock — a nostalgic brand heavily shorted by institutions — the post was like catnip to Semenikhin's fellow retail traders.

Business Insider's Sam O'Brient tracked down Semenikhin — who is based in Dubai — on Monday, while Beyond stock was ripping. He wanted to find out what was motivating him. Why take such a big position in a downtrodden penny stock down more than 80% year to date?

Semenikhin provided some fundamental reasons. Key among them was the completion of a convertible note exchange, which he says lessens its previously high risk of bankruptcy and greatly strengthens its balance sheet. He said this was incorrectly viewed by some as a negative.

"At the current price that I bought in, the pricing was just way too low for what was happening," he told BI.

In a separate interview on Tuesday, he said that he sees the stock soaring another 66% from current levels, to around $6 per share.

Semenikhin's undervaluation thesis may very well be true. After all, Beyond on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Walmart that — when combined with the lingering retail rocket fuel, and the stock's addition to a meme-stock ETF — sent shares surging more than 100% for a second straight day.

But there's also no denying that Semenikhin is trying to emulate the playbook of Roaring Kitty, the GameStop-obsessed retail investor who was eventually immortalized in his very own movie.

It's also clear he's having a similar effect, with Monday's price surge in Beyond defying fundamental logic.

There's the regular YouTube posting. There's the Reddit activity (although his original post is now deleted). And there's the unrepentant desire to drive a short squeeze.

Will Semenikhin go full Roaring Kitty and start wearing a signature headband? That remains to be seen. But the similarities run deep, and BI will continue to check in with him for updates.

On the move

Look at that V-shaped bounce! Thanks a lot, Dimitri Semenikhin (and Walmart).

Beyond Meat stock is now down just 4% in 2025, compared to the 86% loss through last Thursday's close.

The rally has coincided with unprecedented options-trading volume for the stock, and as daily shares traded broke the 1 billion threshold for two straight sessions.

BI market mix

• A terrible day for gold. Sure, the precious metal has been on a blistering rally to record highs, but the biggest sell-off in 12 years is still jarring. Billionaire investor Bill Gross saw it coming, and told BI the top is in.
• When Elon stays quiet, Tesla stock soars. Shares are up 25% since the CEO stepped away from DOGE in late May. How will today's earnings move the stock?
• Falling oil prices could lower interest rates. Market sage Ed Yardeni says crude prices are correlated with the 10-year Treasury yield. Oil near a five-year low could be signaling that easier borrowing conditions are coming.

Chart of the day

The title of this chart from BlackRock Investment Institute says it all: earnings expectations for companies in the S&P 500 are reaccelerating. This is reflected by the upward slope of the orange line, which shows the 12-month change in profit forecasts.

This aligns with the guidance we've gotten so far from industry bellwethers during the third-quarter reporting season. On Tuesday alone, General Motors, GE, Lockheed Martin, and RTX raised future earnings forecasts.

Culture confidential

The $1,100 shoes Wall Streeters can't get enough of

Business Insider's Will Edwards spotlights a hot trend dominating Wall Street and the finance industry.

They make you feel like you're walking on a cloud. You can wear them with a suit or with jeans. They'll earn you street cred with finance bros.

The catch? They're $1,100.

Zegna's Triple Stitch shoes have unofficially become Wall Street's hottest footwear, exploding in popularity in recent years amid the quiet luxury movement. Apple CEO Tim Cook sports them. CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin told BI he wears them too, and that he sees them everywhere. The Wall Street Journal proclaimed a few years back that they're the most-worn shoes on private jets.

But they're not only popular with the uber-rich. Sales associates at multiple Zegna locations in Manhattan said that they have a wide age range of financial industry clients.

Are they really worth the hype? Eager to see for myself, I went to the brand's global store on 57th Street in NYC to try on a pair.

My review, in short? They're absolutely worth the money. If you're the type of person who is OK with dropping a rent payment on some sneakers, at least. I didn't love their plain look initially, but how they feel on your feet completely changes your perception of them.

I'm usually a size 11.5, but the folks at the store said they recommend going a half-size up. They come in 30 different color options — I went with a black and white scheme. They were easily the most comfortable pair of shoes I'd ever worn.

After being made a convert, I decided to head out and try to spot a pair of them in the wild. Given that it was rainy, I was doubtful I'd find anyone. But within minutes, as I approached Park Avenue, there was a pair walking right at me.

A visitor from Charleston, South Carolina, said he had his custom-made last year and picked up three pairs.

"I love them," he said, before asking: "Are you gonna buy a pair?"

I'll have to save up first, I told him.

Do you own a pair of Zegnas or another quiet luxury item you love? Let us know!

— Will Edwards

The First Trade team: Joe Ciolli, executive editor and anchor, in Chicago. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. William Edwards, senior reporter, in New York. Steve Russolillo, chief news editor, in New York.