The Next GameStop? Meme Stock Traders Make Biggie-Size Bet on Wendy’s

Bitcoin is sinking Wednesday, but retail investors have their eye on a different risk asset, helping shares in fast-food chain Wendy’s (WEN) surge nearly 26%.

The McDonald’s and Burger King rival sank as low as $6.08 per share in early week trading, but finished Wednesday trading at $7.86, a more than 25% daily increase after the recently frosty stock was tagged on Reddit as a franchise in need of saving. Shares rose as high as $8.89 in Wednesday trading, and are rising again in after-hours trading as of this writing.

A post entitled “We need to save Wendy’s” has been upvoted more than 18,000 times on popular investing forum r/WallStreetBets, which gained fame and notoriety for kick-starting the GameStop meme stock saga behind the rallying cries of Keith Gill, also known as RoaringKitty. 

“We need to save Wendy’s before it’s too late,” the post reads, highlighting the firm’s drastic share price decline in recent years. “If this company goes bankrupt, we’ll all be out of a job!”

Not only are shares surging, but trading volumes have exploded, with more than 203 million shares having traded hands prior to market close on Wednesday. By comparison, the stock typically averages less than 10 million shares traded, according to data from Yahoo Finance, a daily increase of 1,970%. 

Nevertheless, even after WEN’s jump on Wednesday, shares in the restaurant chain are down 36% in the last year, and 66% over the last five years, per data from Yahoo Finance.

Beyond the headlining cry for help, a flood of individual posts have circulated on r/WallStreetBets showing purchases of Wendy’s shares or long options trades, which are bets on the price going up. 

The spike in interest has pushed the ticker to the #1 trending spot on the financial social media site StockTwits, which tracks posts and sentiment around different assets.

Predictably, crypto investors have sought to capitalize on the move as well. A meme coin version of the stock (WEN), created on token launchpad Pump.fun and unaffiliated with The Wendy’s Company, has jumped to a $439,000 market cap on Solana in the last 24 hours—more than a 1,450% gain. 

A pinned comment to the popular Reddit post shows that the original poster has promoted the same token, which begins with a Solana address of “Eav7v,” in their bio on the site. 

The forum has also taken turns propelling similarly situated firms in traditional markets, creating sharp moves in shares of movie theater chain AMC (AMC), mobile hardware operator Blackberry (BB), and home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (BBY) in the past.