The meme stocks have a couple of new candidates, with both Clover Health Investments and Wendy’s rising premarket after surging in the prior session. Here’s what we’re watching ahead of Wednesday’s opening bell.

  • Healthcare company Clover Health is up 25% premarket, following Tuesday’s 86% rise. Hamburger chain Wendy’s edged up just 0.3%, but that builds on Tuesday’s 26% jump.
  • U.S. stock futures edged up, pointing to tepid gains at the open led by technology stocks.
  • Futures tied to the S&P 500 ticked up 0.2%. On Tuesday, it ground up for its third-highest close on record. Nasdaq-100 futures edged up 0.4%, suggesting muted gains for technology stocks after the opening bell. Read our full market wrap.
What’s Coming Up
  • Earnings are due from GameStop, Oxford Industries and Greif after the close.
  • U.S. wholesale inventories for April, due at 10 a.m., are expected to rise 0.8% from the prior month.
Market Movers to Watch
  • Campbell Soup shares dropped 7.8% after it cuts its fiscal-year forecasts for both sales and earnings per share.
  • Clean Energy Fuels soared 28% premarket. Comments referencing the stock were trending higher on WallstreetBets, according to topstonks.com.
  • Lordstown Motors dropped 3.1% premarket, after losing more than 16% in the prior session. The electric-truck startup disclosed that it doesn’t have sufficient cash to start full commercial production and has doubts about whether it can continue as a going concern through the end of the year.
Lordstown Motors Corp. headquarters in Lordstown, Ohio, May 15, 2021.

Lordstown Motors Corp. headquarters in Lordstown, Ohio, May 15, 2021.

Photo: Dustin Franz/Bloomberg News

  • The original meme stock, GameStop, added 2% premarket. E-commerce entrepreneur Ryan Cohen is slated to become the videogame retailer’s chairman on Wednesday, cementing his oversight of a company that is searching for a chief executive and seeking to manage expectations of shareholders bullish on its turnaround potential.
  • Brown-Forman shares fell 5.9% after the liquor producer’s profit came in below expectations, though its sales beat forecasts.
  • Sherwin Williams shares slipped 0.4% ahead of the bell. The paint maker raised its sales and profit outlook on “strong” demand, but said rising costs for raw materials have led it to raise prices.
  • Vaccine makers were on the rise again, with Moderna up 0.7% premarket and Novavax adding 0.6%.
Market Facts
  • Nearly $3 of every $10 of global equity inflows have been in ESG funds so far in 2021, according to Bank of America. Assets under management in the 1,900-plus global ESG funds tracked by the firm hit a record $1.4 trillion in April, more than double the amount from a year ago.
  • In the Boston area alone, venture capitalists pumped $7.2 billion into life-sciences companies through May, closing in on the $8.2 billion they invested all last year, according to Crunchbase.
Chart of the Day
  • China’s tech crackdown is mostly affecting firms listed outside the country, helping to create a big performance gap between onshore and offshore Chinese stocks.
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