Trending tickers: GameStop, Bitcoin, Dr Martens, Fevertree

Lucy Harley-McKeown
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 12: Mijita performs onstage during Dr. Martens Made Strong NYC at Greenpoint Terminal on October 12, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Dr. Martens)
Iconic UK footwear brand Dr Martens is bracing for tough year ahead. (Jemal Countess via Getty Images)

Memestock-in-chief GameStop was on the ascent again on Tuesday, up more than 20% in pre-market trade. The moves come following an announcement on Friday that the company has completed a previously disclosed, roughly $933.4m (£730m) equity offering through the sale of 45 million shares.

The rally more than corrects losses of around 13% on Thursday last week.

Read more: FTSE 100 LIVE: European stocks mixed as UK shop price rises return to 'normal'

GameStop's moves create something of a trend among memestocks in their equity strategy — they follow a $250m at-the-market equity offering by AMC earlier this month.

Bitcoin hovered on a flat line against the dollar in London on Tuesday, as bitcoin and ethereum-backed exchange traded notes (ETNs) hit the London Stock Exchange for the first time.

ETNs are traded and settled like regular shares and track the performance of underlying assets such as bitcoin or ether, similar to spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January.

Read more: Bitcoin ETNs debut on London Stock Exchange

Their launch comes after a price rally in recent weeks from around $59,000 to almost $68,500 on Tuesday.

Price spikes have been driven by ETF approvals for the likes of Blackrock and Fidelity and the bitcoin halving, which happens approximately every four years and involves a reduction in the number of bitcoins rewarded to miners.

Iconic UK footwear brand Dr Martens is bracing for tough year ahead, as it warned last month that it's US business is going so badly it needs to extend paying for additional storage space. It also announced its chief executive's departure.

How the firm's future is set to become clearer when it reports results on Thursday.

The company has said pre-tax profits could fall by around two-thirds due to plunging US wholesale revenues and its decision not to hike prices to offset rising costs. US wholesale revenues are forecast to tumble by double-digit percentages.

Read more: Stocks that are trending today

The chief executive, Kenny Wilson, who has spent six years at the helm, is to leave at the end of the financial year and will be replaced by Ije Nwokorie, who has served as chief brand officer in the past year, and previously worked as a senior director at Apple Retail (AAPL).

“The next 12-18 months will prove critical for the footwear firm to stabilise performance," said Axel Rudolph, market analyst at IG, said. "If challenges persist through 2025, its strategic reset could face deeper scrutiny even with a strong cultural lineage behind the Dr Martens name.”

High end drinks brand Fevertree saw its stock sink 5.3% in early trade on Tuesday, after Goldman Sachs rated the stock as one to sell, from neutral.

"While Fever-Tree's EPS growth algorithm of 18% between FY25-27e remains attractive in our view, we flag that it is mostly driven by easing COGS rather than underlying top-line growth acceleration," the analysts said.

"We think most investors consider Fever-Tree to be a growth stock, and will see a medium-term organic sales growth algorithm at +7.4% as unattractive in light of demanding valuation on 31x CY25e P/E."

However, Goldman sees "scope for downside risk," pointing to full-year estimates over the next two and a half years.

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