Sell into the Beyond Meat frenzy, says one of its few analysts
Investors ought to steer clear of Beyond Meat due to weakening consumer demand for alternative meat products, analysts from Mizuho said after the stock rocketed higher earlier this week. The investment bank, which has an underperform rating on shares, lowered its price target for the animal-free meat company to $1.50 from $2.00, implying 50% downside. Beyond Meat once sold for almost $240 a share at the height of the meat alternative craze in the summer of 2019, after Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse brought it public at $25 a share in a May 2019 initial public offering. At one point in 2020, some 23 analysts on Wall Street covered Beyond Meat. Today, only eight do. One day last week, Beyond Meat shares sold for just 50 cents each. Cautious outlook “We hold a cautious outlook for sales growth of plant-based meat alternatives given weak retail unit velocities and consumers’ elevated interest in protein/animal meat,” Mizuho analyst John Baumgartner wrote Friday in a note to clients. Beyond Meat shares have collapsed over the past five years, starting with a 48% plunge in 2021 and plunging further until Roundhill Investments added the stock to its Roundhill Meme Stock ETF (MEME) on Monday. Beyond’s inclusion in the exchange-traded fund triggered a short squeeze, driving up the stock more than 1,300% over the course of a four-day rally this week, before a sell-off returned the stock to where it was trading over the summer. Now, the stock is trading just above $3, off 60% from a high of $7.69 reached Wednesday. Beyond rose about 7% in early trading Friday after pre-announcing that it expects to report net revenue of about $70 million in the third quarter, topping analysts’ estimates. But Mizuho analysts noted that Beyond Meat will continue to suffer from “weak fundamentals.” None of the eight analysts on the Street who still cover Beyond Meat rate it a buy today. Five analysts rate it a sell and only three call the stock a hold, according to FactSet data. Despite the latest meme stock frenzy, Beyond Meat has nonetheless still fallen 23% so far in 2025 after tumbling 58% in 2024.
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