While Bitcoin was sliding on Wednesday, small investors had their attention fixed on a very different risk asset, sending shares of fast-food chain Wendy's (WEN) up nearly 26%. The rally in the McDonald's and Burger King rival kicked off after the stock was flagged on Reddit as a franchise that needed rescuing.
Earlier in the week the shares had slipped as low as $6.08, but by the close of Wednesday's session they finished at $7.86, a daily gain of more than 25%. During the day the stock climbed as high as $8.89, and it was rising again in after-hours trading as of this writing.
A 'Save Wendy's' Post Catches Fire
A post titled 'We need to save Wendy's' has racked up more than 18,000 upvotes on the popular investing forum r/WallStreetBets. This is the same forum that earned both fame and notoriety for sparking the GameStop meme stock saga, fueled by the rallying cries of Keith Gill, also known as RoaringKitty.
Pointing to the steep slide in the company's share price over recent years, the post declared, 'We need to save Wendy's before it's too late. If this company goes bankrupt, we'll all be out of a job!'
Trading Volume Explodes 1,970%
It was not just the price that took off. Trading volume exploded too, with more than 203 million shares changing hands before Wednesday's close. The stock typically averages fewer than 10 million shares traded in a day, according to Yahoo Finance data, making this a 1,970% jump.
Even so, despite Wednesday's leap, the restaurant chain's stock is still down 36% over the past year and 66% over the past five years, again per Yahoo Finance.
Buy Orders and a Trending Ticker
Beyond the headline plea for help, a flood of individual posts circulated on r/WallStreetBets showing people buying Wendy's shares or placing long options trades, which are bets that the price will keep rising. The surge in interest pushed the ticker to the #1 trending spot on the financial social media site StockTwits, which tracks posts and sentiment around different assets.
Crypto Players Jump In Too
On the same day, a painful Bitcoin sell-off dragged Ethereum, XRP and Dogecoin lower and sent crypto-linked stocks diving. Even so, crypto investors moved to cash in on the moment. A meme coin version of the stock (WEN), created on the token launchpad Pump.fun and unaffiliated with The Wendy's Company, surged to a $439,000 market cap on Solana over the past 24 hours, a gain of more than 1,450%.
A pinned comment on the popular Reddit post shows that the original poster has promoted that same token, whose Solana address begins with 'Eav7v,' in their bio on the site.
The Forum Has Done This Before
The forum has repeatedly lifted similarly struggling companies in traditional markets. In the past it has driven sharp swings in shares of movie theater chain AMC (AMC), mobile hardware maker Blackberry (BB) and home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (BBY).
