Spirit Airlines Is the Latest Meme Stock Amid 131% Spike

^{This article originally appeared on Business Insider.}

Spirit Airlines has turned into the latest meme stock in what has been a wild week of trades for the low-cost airline.

The drama first unfolded last week, when a court blocked JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion takeover of Spirit Airlines due to concerns about competition within the airline industry.

Following the court’s decision, Spirit Airlines stock plunged as much as 74% over a period of three days as the company’s deal was in doubt.

The stock price of Spirit Airlines fell to as low as $4.04 on Thursday, but it has since mounted a furious rally, in part driven by a retail trading frenzy akin to the meme-stock rallies seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, during which traders bought shares of companies that had questionable fundamentals.

Shares of Spirit Airlines have since rallied as much as 131% from the low on Thursday, hitting a high of $9.34 per share on Tuesday. Helping boost the stock was JetBlue’s decision to file an appeal to the court ruling, offering hope to investors that a deal might ultimately go through.

Cumulative trading volume has exploded over the past week, eclipsing more than 512 million shares traded, with multiple trading days seeing more than 75 million shares being traded. For context, Spirit Airlines has 109 million shares outstanding, and its typical daily volume before the court ruling was just 3 million shares.

Online chatter about the stock has picked up amid the trading frenzy, with message volume on the social media platform StockTwits registering an “extremely high” reading on Tuesday, registering a score of 87 out of 100.

Spirit Airlines stock has also received attention from Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who purchased shares and posted videos to X over the past week commenting about the recent volatility in the stock price.

“$SAVE is ripping. WE FLY IN THIS COUNTRY!” he posted to X.

Despite the recent four-day rally, shares of Spirit Airlines are still 42% below last week’s price before the court decision.

^{Markets Insider}