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- The meme-like gains for Avis stock are throwing off the Dow Jones Transportation Average.
- That average helps predict market rallies, but the meme-stock craze may be muddling the rule.
- Avis shares have rallied more than 600% this year, spurred in part by a tweet from Elon Musk.
The latest meme stock is muddling a century-old indicator that predicts market moves.
Avis joined the meme stock ranks this year with a surge of over 600%, with much of the gains coming this month alone. The steep rise in the share price – somewhat spurred by a tweet from none other than Tesla CEO Elon Musk casting doubt on a deal with Avis rival Hertz – are throwing off the 137-year-old Dow Jones Transportation Average.
That index is part of the "Dow Theory," which says for gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to last, they must be synced up with highs in the transportation sector, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
But the meme-stock craze may be confounding that old rule of thumb – the Dow is up about 18% this year, while the Dow's transportation index is up 33%.
More than half of the transportation index's gains since September have come from the run-up in Avis shares, the Journal said, adding that others in the index, including railroad and shipping companies, have struggled amid pandemic pressures, like supply-chain bottlenecks and rising costs.
Avis's rise to meme-stock status took off earlier this month after Tesla announced it penned a deal with competitor Hertz. Shortly after, Musk tweeted that deal had not been signed yet, sending Avis shares soaring more than 200%.
The stock, which slumped to single digits at the start of the pandemic in 2020, traded above $300 on Nov. 2 following the tweet. It pared gains in the following days.
On Thursday, the stock rose 4.5% to $265.29 at 11:13 a.m. in ET.
On top of retail-trader hype, Avis has strong fundamentals, according to JPMorgan analysts. In its third-quarter results, it showed a near 100% year-over-year jump in revenue with demand for travel rebounding as pandemic restrictions ease.