Kodak shares are still high with raking up at 530 percent for the previous five days, despite some huge drops last week and a 20 percent slide on Monday. This increased stock for the camera company came as they secured a federal loan of $765 million last week to produce components needed to make generic drugs, a first effort towards invoking the US Defense Production Act.
Chemical advantage
Kodak’s executive chairman Jim Continenza had expressed that the once camera-focused company has an advantage in the chemicals, which they use for their camera’s films. However, CNN Business noted that Kodak is not necessarily the next Pfizer with this US loan.
The deal with the “deal”
Stephanie Ruhle, a news anchor for MSNBC and have previously worked for Bloomberg News, noted that the US Defense Protection Act may make sense for the administration, which aims to decrease dependency of US government from foreign countries for medicines. However, she further said that there are other viable drug companies in the country, saying, “Kodak isn’t one of them.”
I joined my friend @JoyAnnReid this evening to discuss the $756M defense loan to Kodak from the government that raised some eyebrows.
Watch our conversation here 👇https://t.co/XQrZSanG6r
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) August 4, 2020
Previously, Kodak has reported for bankruptcy protection in 2012, losing to the digitalization of photos and likely with improvements of phone camera quality. The company was also known to jump into some trends, like 2018’s KODAKCoin as they enter the cryptocurrency mania.
Trading trend
Telling to CNN Business, Thornburg CEO Jason Brady said, “The market is more driven by retail [investors] in the short term that it has been in some time.” This could indicate investors are not in for the trend for the long haul.
Robintrack, which analyzes holding patterns of traders via its app, shows data that the camera company is the most actively traded stock for the past week. This came as news broke of the government’s support to Kodak’s efforts of launching a pharmaceutical arm. The skyrocket of Kodak’s share is also popular among younger day traders to buy and sell.
Alongside Kodak are other socks that have a huge following for July which includes car maker Tesla, which buoyed Elon Musk up to the rankings of the world’s richest people list per Forbes, and tech giants Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Also in the list is Moderna, which is fast tracking its development of a coronavirus vaccine.