Novonix shares come crashing back to earth
An absolute fortune has been made and lost in a week by investors plunging into the shares of a Brisbane company.
In the US, there have been more than three dozen investigations involving Tesla crashes where advanced driver assistance systems were suspected of use and 19 deaths were reported.
Battery materials company Novonix briefly had a market value of $2.2 billion after an astounding rise in its share price over the space of a few days last week.
The rise was sparked by two announcements: a US Government grant of $US5 million to advance its technology and the appointment of batteries guru Jeff Dahn, who has research ties to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla.
Dahn was appointed as an adviser to Novonix, but it wasn’t enough to sustain the price spike.
Novonix’s shares have been steadily climbing but the spike last week meant it had climbed to a market capitalisation of $2.2 billion from $171 million a year ago, all without making a profit.
Irrational exuberance isn’t unusual in a market where fortunes can be won and lost in a day and a more sober assessment of the company came this week.
About $900 million has been wiped from the stock this week as its share price came back from above $4.20 to $2.60 today. That represented an 16 per cent fall for the day, but is still about $1 a share ahead of where it was on January 18.
The current price also puts it closer to Morgans target price of $2.37. It maintains a market capitalisation of $1.3 billion.
