Wendy's stock was jumping again on Thursday as retail traders carried on piling into the fast-food chain, which could be set for a short squeeze.
Shares, which trade under the ticker WEN, rose 15% to $9.05 ahead of the opening bell. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were 0.8% higher.
Wendy's was seeing way more action than red-hot Micron Technology in the premarket, even though the memory-chip maker posted stellar earnings that may help revive the stuttering artificial-intelligence trade.
More than 4.8 million shares of Wendy's had changed hands as of 7 a.m. Eastern time. The equivalent figure for Micron was just above 2.1 million.
It was the second straight session that Wendy's was racking up double-digit gains, after the stock closed 26% higher on Wednesday. That rally came after a slew of posts on Reddit's WallStreetBets investing forum called for retail investors to buy shares in the restaurant chain.
The company also said it had appointed former Potbelly Sandwich Works Chief Financial Officer Steve Cirulis as CFO and Chief Strategy Officer on Tuesday, as new CEO Robert Wright's turnaround plan takes shape.
Wendy's looks to be trading like a meme stock, powered higher by social-media hype rather than its underlying fundamentals. It has received love from the WallStreetBets crowd before, enjoying a brief surge in summer 2021.
Wendy's may also be experiencing a short squeeze -- when a stock suddenly jumps, forcing short sellers to cover their losing bets and kickstarting a cycle that in turn drives shares even higher.
Short interest represented just under 30% of the company's public float on Wednesday.