Last week was a good respite for investors, with the stock market showing signs of life for the first time in a while. Big gains for the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 2.02%) helped erase a small part of the index's losses for 2022. Moreover, the Nasdaq is doing a better job at holding its own than other indexes, clawing back from early morning losses to eke out a five-point gain as of 12:30 p.m. ET.
Some of the biggest stocks in the market were among gainers on Tuesday, but a couple of smaller companies stood out. One has tried to recover from a steep downturn over the past 12 months, while the other is bouncing along with the cryptocurrency market. Here's the latest on these two soaring Nasdaq stocks.
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Mullen looks to get back in gear
Shares of Mullen Automotive (MULN -0.32%) were up more than 40% at midday on Tuesday. The electric vehicle company has been working to take advantage of the rising demand for EV battery technology, and the latest from Mullen suggests that it might be able to regain some of its lost momentum.
Mullen reported early Tuesday that it had received results from Indiana's Battery Innovation Center. The testing of Mullen's solid-state polymer battery cell technology showed that the battery exceeded its previously stated values for amperage and voltage.
The news is important because Mullen thinks it can scale up the performance of the tested cell for use in vehicle battery packs. Effectively, the company hopes that a 150 kilowatt-hour solid-state battery would be able to use this technology to power the Mullen Five EV Crossover, and if so, it believes that the vehicle would be able to go more than 600 miles on a single full charge.
Mullen has been the subject of short-selling researchers, who've argued that the solid-state EV battery maker likely isn't as far along toward reaching full production as it hopes, among other allegations. Shareholders have suffered declines of more than 90% over the past year. Mullen will have to prove skeptics wrong in order to generate long-lasting positive sentiment among its investors.
MicroStrategy shines again
Elsewhere, shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR 3.38%) picked up 23%. The company makes subscription-based software, but investors almost exclusively pay attention to MicroStrategy because of its high-profile holdings in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC -0.72%).
Indeed, MicroStrategy's rise on Tuesday is closely tied to the fortunes of the Bitcoin market over the weekend. The cryptocurrency is now trading above $32,000, up from below $28,500 late Friday. After the crypto debacle involving a high-profile stablecoin that broke its peg to the U.S. dollar, many investors pulled back from digital assets entirely. However, over the weekend, that negative sentiment seemed to dissipate somewhat.
MicroStrategy investors breathed easier as a result, because the company has some leveraged bets on Bitcoin. The company has repeatedly borrowed money to purchase more of the cryptocurrency, holding more than 129,000 Bitcoin as of March 31. With prices down from well over $65,000 in the past year, some had worried that the price might fall so low as to force MicroStrategy to liquidate its holdings to meet its debt obligations.
MicroStrategy was modestly profitable throughout the 2010s, but since embarking on its cryptocurrency journey, the company has posted significant losses. That could reverse if Bitcoin recovers, but few investors look at MicroStrategy from an operational standpoint anymore.