Beyond Meat reverses course after slipping below IPO price in choppy trading

© Reuters. Products from Beyond Meat Inc, the vegan burger maker, are shown for sale at a market in Encinitas, California, U.S., June 5, 2019. REUTERS/

By Bansari Mayur Kamdar

(Reuters) -Shares of Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) reversed course to gain as much as 12% in volatile trading after opening below their initial public offering price for the first time on Thursday following the vegan meat maker's bigger quarterly loss.

Shares tumbled as much as 22% to a record low of $20.50 and below the 2019 IPO price of $25. Trading in the stock was halted multiple times in the first hour.

At 10:58 a.m. ET, Beyond Meat was up 7%, mirroring the broader market that flipped course to trade higher.

Beyond Meat has seen its fortunes plummet in recent quarters as it battled increasing competition and surging inflation that has led Wall Street to fret over the possibility of the company needing more cash.

"They've got over $700 million in cash so they're not going bankrupt. The stock is down 87% from its high and I think people are saying at this level maybe I give it a shot," Thomas Hayes chairman Great Hill Capital in New York said.

"It's got enough margin of safety."

In the first quarter, cash used for operations surged to $165 million from about $31 million a year ago, as the plant-based meat pioneer diversified its product range.

"Beyond Meat's cost structure may be out of whack, and cash may run out by the end of next year," J.P. Morgan's Ken Goldman said.

"We worry that management's outlook is a bit out of balance with current realities."

On Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Ethan Brown sought to address the concerns.

"I wouldn't take this quarter's cash consumption and then just kind of play it out and assume that we're out of cash based on that," he said, adding the company was taking "several measures" to reduce expenses.

So far this year, the stock is down about 60%.

About 42.1% of Beyond Meat's free float were in short position as of May 9, according to Ortex data, just off of an all-time high of 42.8% from last week.