If you have a hankering for a burger, then Beyond Meat may be for you, especially if you like plant protein burgers. Into the conversation, comes recently IPOed Beyond Meat.

BYND came public on 2 May 2019 at $25/share. Since then, the chart looks like the following. Hello, America!

From an Initial Public Offering price of $25/share, the first trade was at $46/share and the first day ended with the price $65.75/share. This was a 163% premium to the IPO price.

The stock price has continued to increase — look at the chart above — and sits now in the high $80-ies having traded as high as +/- $93. You are looking at a 200% + gain if you got some of those IPO shares. Lucky you.

That is a damn good ride as rides go. Much better than some purely tech IPOs in the same time frame (talking to you Uber and Lyft).

There are many who think this is all a headfake. Count your Big Red Car amongst them. This baby is coming back to reality lickety split.

The company went from a market cap of slightly more than one billion dollars to more than $5,340,000,000. That is some significant paper whipped growth.

Beneath all the peas and carrots is a company that has lost between $25-30MM  for the last three years. The 2018 numbers show $88MM of revenue and a loss of $30MM.

By the standards of recent unicorns, this is pretty thin green slime.

There is a huge focus on the 5 1/2 months remaining before the IPO lockup burns off. The end of a lockup from an IPO is usually a time when the market deals with the IPO frenzy and administers a well-deserved barbed wire enema. Ouch.

Until then, there are only about 10,000,000 shares trading and if you want to borrow stock to short — good luck. Expect to pay as much as 37% according to press reports.

Remember, this baby is in the vegan hamburger business. This is not blockchain or tech. This is “eat your peas” investing.

But, hey, what the Hell would a Big Red Car know about a pea based fuel? Not much. Be well.