As we pass the halfway mark of 2023, it’s time to consider which stocks to sell in June.
If investors continue to have trouble understanding whether the markets are due for another correction soon it’s for good reason. June tends to be a historically tough month for markets. That’s a negative. Yet, a potential Fed pivot and the recent artificial intelligence boom both provide reasons for optimism.
Then again, AI could be a bubble in itself. It has fueled the upward movement of tech giants which have proven outsized contributors to recent gains. See where I’m going with this?
There’s a lot of unpredictability in markets currently. Several of the stocks to sell in June below are easy crash-and-burn picks. They’re weak and getting weaker. But others aren’t so obvious.
Lordstown Automotive (RIDE)
Lordstown Automotive (NASDAQ:RIDE) is very clearly a dying stock. Investors have grown weary of the EV truck maker that has also been a consistent loss maker. There is no reason to believe in a turnaround at this point.
Share prices tell a clear story. They fell from $400 in early 2021 to $48 in early 2022. From there they fell to $15 in early 2023. They’re now reading below $4.
Here’s another example of how Lordstown provides hope only to see that hope fade. When the company last reported earnings a Foxconn investment was offered as a beacon of hope. The Taiwanese company that produces iPhones is also investing in EVs.
The firm has been connected to Apple car rumors at various points. Months later Lordstown was in the headlines warning of bankruptcy over a dispute related to that deal.
None of the supposed positives should be heeded. Losses remain substantial. Further, the trucks it produces serve a blue-collar sector that is unlikely to warm up to EVs to levels the general public already has.
Mullen Automotive (MULN)
Mullen Automotive (NASDAQ:MULN) is another dumpster fire EV stock. Its descent has been even more pronounced than that of Lordstown as shares have fallen from $8 to $0.45 year-to-date.
A bit of prying around its mid-May earnings report indicates that its downfall is warranted. In fact, that earnings report shows that the company is a huge going concern. That means a crash and burn in which it goes out of business could logically occur any day.
Mullen Automotive lost $495.4 million in the most recent six-month period. It reported $86.3 million in cash at that time. Even with $45 million in capital expected at the end of this month, MULN stock is headed toward disaster.
The company might file for bankruptcy or it might simply be delisted since it trades below $1. Either way, the only saving grace is as a short sale. Even there, issues persist as there are reports that investors can’t even buy shares to short.
Beyond Meat (BYND)
Consumer packaged goods companies like Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) that rely on trends to build their businesses often end up in trouble.
It’s relatively easy to identify food trends like plant-based meat. There’s always a new trending innovation to follow in food. But creating successful firms out of those trends remains difficult.
Trends come and trends go. And based on Beyond Meat’s most recent financials(1), the plant-based meat trend may have passed its apex. First-quarter revenues fell by 15.7%.
Lower demand could lean that consumers have moved on from Beyond Meat and other plant-based meats. And if they have it won’t matter that the company’s losses narrowed from $100 million to $59 million. Not that a $59 million quarterly loss is particularly compelling to investors anyway.
On the same day that Beyond Meat announced earnings it also announced an at-the-market equity offering. Such offerings are generally well-perceived. However, Beyond Meat suffers from taste perception issues and flagging sales. That’s enough to simply avoid the shares.
C3.ai (AI)
C3.ai (NYSE:AI) stock is unlikely to crash and burn in the sense that it probably runs little risk of running to zero. It is one of the better-known enterprise AI names available and for better or worse carries the ‘AI’ ticker. It will continue to garner attention.
But it isn’t providing surprise returns like some other AI names have recently. Instead, it is pretty much where Wall Street had anticipated it to be. Earnings came in pretty much where Wall Street thought they would with the exception of lower-than-expected free cash flows.
I think the issue with C3.ai has less to do with that slight disappointment and more to do with its mediocrity. The outsized gains in other AI stocks haven’t translated for C3.ai. That’s a problem.
Beyond that, there’s also a looming question about AI stock valuations this year. Many market pundits now speculate that the gains have been overdone and a correction is in order. That would further affect AI stock negatively.
GameStop (GME)
As I write this, GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock is in the midst of its biggest daily decline since June of 2021.
That massive decline comes with the news that the company fired CEO Matt Furlong and hired Ryan Cohen as his replacement. Cohen has long been associated with the company and became its largest shareholder prior to its run-up in value.
He’s also one of the most respected figures in meme stocks. So, the fact that prices continue to tumble despite his installation as CEO will raise doubts in the meme stock community.
While that remains an important reason to avoid GME investors should also note that the company canceled its earnings report at the same time. Cohen initially purchased GameStop because he thought it was intrinsically more valuable than its price at that time.
That may have been true as investors had sold off shares in what they believed to be a dying business model. That’s what GME again represents, only this time the decline coincides with a declining investment proposition for the meme investors who brought it higher to begin with.
Moderna (MRNA)
The pandemic is officially over Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) and that is proving to be a real bane to stocks that blew up as it became reality.
Moderna was one of the biggest winners in the race to commercialize a COVID-19 vaccine. The company hit it big in 2021 with $18.5 billion in sales. Those sales grew to $19.3 billion in 2022, short of the $22 billion projected. This year those sales should be in the neighborhood of $7 billion.
The biotech industry provides once-in-a-lifetime fortunes for companies that produce vaccines for once-in-a-lifetime pandemics.
Moderna now faces a situation in which it has to take that fortune and turn it into a bigger fortune. Otherwise its share price is going to continue to trend downward.
That’s the double-edged sword of biotech. Time and time again biotech companies have become stars only to find themselves in similar situations in which they slowly fade. That’s where Moderna is currently.
Nvidia (NVDA)
Do I truly believe Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock is fated to crash and burn? No, that’s excessive. I still believe it’s among the best long-term tech stocks available right now.
There’s little reason to doubt that it will continue to grow over the long term. Its AI positioning provides too massive an advantage currently to logically argue otherwise.
What I’m arguing here is the same idea currently reverberating through the market: As great as Nvidia’s recent performance has been, it’s probably a good time to bank some of those gains. It looks like the market is doing exactly that as NVDA shares are pretty much back to May 25 levels when it released earnings.
Nvidia is known to be volatile overall. It goes up and down so once it hits a new high investors are bound to question whether they should bank their gains.
NVDA is still extremely overvalued with a price-to-earnings ratio that is unrivaled among its large-cap counterparts.
In short, trim some of your position and be thankful for that. It’ll likely struggle to substantiate an increase again until Q2 earnings are released so if further signs of strength emerge then invest before another surge.
| RIDE | Lordstown Automotive | $3.01 |
| MULN | Mullen Automotive | $0.38 |
| BYND | Beyond Meat | $12.45 |
| AI | C3.ai | $37.16 |
| GME | GameStop | $24.04 |
| MRNA | Moderna | $122.77 |
| NVDA | Nvidia | $390.60 |
On the date of publication, Alex Sirois did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
