US stocks opened higher on Wednesday morning as investors hold their breath for a decision on interest rates from the US Federal Reserve this afternoon. Markets have been sinking over recent months on inflation and interest rate concerns, with the hawkish fed expected to hike rates by as much as 0.75% later today.
Oil and Bitcoin prices are down this morning, though gold is in the green.
Here are Wednesday’s trending stocks:
Revlon Inc (NYSE: REV)
This well-known makeup brand is preparing to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy as it struggles in an ocean of debt that amounts to more than $3bn. With this in mind, you might be interested to find out that its share price is in the ascendancy this morning. How can this be?
There could be a couple of different reasons at play here. On one hand, Revlon has managed to narrowly escape bankruptcy in the past. The company got out by the skin of its teeth in November 2020 after bondholders helped to construct a debt restructuring plan. Some investors might well be hoping that lightning will strike twice.
Banking on this is of course a massive risk, but with Revlon’s share price having tanked to lows of just over $1 on Friday it looks like some folks are rolling the dice with the aim of picking up the stock at a bargain basement price.
Digital World Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: DWAC)
This Trump-linked special acquisition outfit has climbed on Wednesday morning, though are still down overall this week after plummeting on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s downturn came after the Securities and Exchange Commission expanded their investigation into the company and its merger with the former President’s Truth Social social media network.
A filing by the company that explained the investigation cautioned that “any resolution of the investigation could result in the imposition of significant penalties, injunctions, prohibitions on the conduct of Digital World’s business, damage to its reputation, and other sanctions against Digital World”.
Even so, some investors seem convinced there is life in the stock. As such, Digital World Acquisition Corp shares are up by more than 8% in early trading.
Color Star Technology (NASDAQ: CSCW)
This business, which provides online entertainment performances and online music education services, is firmly in the green after it announced the successful upgrading of its metaverse software Color World to a new version.
The company’s CEO, Lucas Capetian, commented:
"Through the continuous efforts of our technical team in recent months, Color World Metaverse app has received wide recognition from users all around the world, with a stronger and stronger user experience, while also providing us with a lot of improvement suggestions. Businesses are likely to migrate onto our platform, as we are currently among the world's first entertainment metaverse software, and Color World is different from other software in the same genre.”
Color Star Technology’s share price has leapt by more than 20% following the positive news update.
Evoke Pharma Inc (NASDAQ: EVOK)
Gastrointestinal diseases specialist Evoke Pharma has seen its share price rocket by more than 50% this morning after confirming that its Gimoti treatment solution has been added to the Florida Medicaid Preferred Drug List with immediate effect.
The company’s chief business officer, Matt D’Onofrio, said:
“We view this addition to the Florida Medicaid PDL as a win for patient access to this important medicine for diabetic gastroparesis patients, who have very limited options to obtain symptomatic relief. In a world where many new products are excluded from formularies and patient access is denied, this decision is a significant commercial milestone for Gimoti.”
Boxed, Inc (NYSE: BOXD)
Online wholesale retailer Boxed has seen its share price rise by nearly 20% after a vote of confidence from its leadership. The rise follows the purchase of 75,000 shares by director Andrew Pearson in a transaction on Monday. These shares were purchased at an average price of $1.78 each, a premium to the current price of $1.69 at the time of writing.
The boost offered by this vote of confidence has not been enough to boost BOXD back to previous heights though, with the stock price still down by 84% over the past month and by almost 88% across the year to date.