Visit Disneyland, and you’ll be able to experience Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. If you’re a Beasley Media Group shareholder, the last 48 hours may have presented the same level of stomach-churning and screaming as the theme park attraction.
Thanks to “meme stock” Discord chat among gamers and followers to dubious trading option-makers with followers on X, “BBGI” exploded in growth on Wednesday. Within the first 90 minutes of Thursday’s trading on Nasdaq, the wild increase in value had all but evaporated.
With volume at 1.28 million shares as of 10:48am Eastern, and 2.98 million shares as of 3:30pm Eastern, Beasley shares were down by 46.5% to $8.93.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Beasley shares were priced at $12.33, and on their way up to a high of $26.37 before sellers swooped in during the final minutes of regular trading. The profiteers then continued their selling in after-hours trading and again in pre-market trading on Thursday.
The silver lining? Even a $9 valuation is rewarding for “BBGI” shareholders, as the stock had been mired in the $4-$5 trading range since May.
Across December 10, a mad dash for publicly traded Beasley shares was seen. This led Mario Gabelli, Beasley’s second-largest institutional investor with some 76,650 shares, to chime in on social media platform X.
Beasley Broadcast (BBGI) ,,,stock traded 45.8 million shares …and jumped $12.64 from $4.05 …there are less than 1 million shares in “float” i.e. public (not counting insider/ family ownership of CLASS B)
As of today, 25 institutions hold shares, with 45.8% of the float held by institutions. Gabelli Funds has 2.11% equity interest in Beasley Media Group, while Gabelli-led Gamco Investors holds 5.78% equity interest. The lead institutional investor in Beasley is Brigade Capital Management LP, the global asset management firm led by Managing Partner Donald E. Morgan III.
Even with “BBGI” coming back to reality, the X feed featured posts from random individuals with opinions on the owner of such radio stations as WBZ-FM “98.5 The Sports Hub” in Boston, WQYK and “Q105” in Tampa, and storied Rockers in both Detroit and Philadelphia.
The third X post from the top was reposted more than 100 times by what appear to be fake bot-driven accounts.
Thus far, the Discord community appears to be … discord over “BBGI.”
