10 Stocks Already Soaring in 2021

2021 is only one month old, but the market has already seen a year’s worth of excitement after being rocked by an unprecedented short squeeze. As you probably know, a short squeeze that began with a group of traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets page bidding up GameStop (NYSE: GME) has spread to a wide range of consumer stocks with several having jumped by multiples in just a few days.

While that’s been the dominant market narrative in the last week, there are some stocks that are moving higher on legitimate news.

Let’s take a look at some of the big winners from the massive short squeeze and those that have jumped for other reasons.

(Note: Percentage gains are through Jan. 28.)

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

No discussion of soaring stocks is complete without mentioning GameStop. The company had been gaining some fundamental momentum in recent months as Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen took a stake in the video game retailer and gained a board seat earlier this month, causing some to see the company as a potential turnaround play in e-commerce.

However, the real reason for the stock’s surge was a massive short squeeze executed by traders on Reddit who spotted the opportunity after noticing that more than 100% of the stock was sold short. The run-up in the stock pummeled hedge fund Melvin Capital, which had a large short position in the company, and even led Robinhood and other brokerages to temporarily disable purchases of GameStop and other squeezed stocks due to “volatility.” At one point, GameStop was up nearly 2,500%, though the stock is likely to fall substantially from here as the price has become detached from fundamentals.

ALSO READ: I Own These 3 Potential Short-Squeeze Stocks. Here's What I'm Doing

Renewable energy stocks have been exploding in recent months, following the earlier boom in electric vehicle stocks. Investors are hopeful that the Biden administration will accelerate the transition to green energy as the new president has already committed to making the entire federal vehicle fleet electric.

One stock that’s emerged as a winner on this trend is Gevo (Nasdaq: GEVO). Gevo isn’t your typical alternative fuel stock, however. The company’s technology takes crops like corn and converts them to conventional fuels like gasoline and jet fuel. The stock has soared in recent months as it announced a new plant in South Dakota, Net-Zero 1, and on broader hopes for green energy. With the stock now up nearly 1,000% in the last three months, high expectations are baked in for a company that is still essentially in a development stage as construction won’t begin on Net-Zero 1 until 2022 and it only generated $5 million in revenue in the first three quarters.

Chinese drone manufacturer EHang Holdings (Nasdaq: EH) has emerged as a big winner as drones are another emerging technology that investors hope will go mainstream over the next decade.

The recent surge started in the end of December after China’s equivalent to the U.S. Postal Service issued a new standard for uncrewed aerial vehicles, which includes weight and speed specifications, an important step forward for the technology.

On Jan. 12, the company announced strategic partnerships with several companies to initiate Urban Air Mobility operations for aerial sightseeing in the Hengqin New Area, which the company believes will help introduce its urban air taxis, or its electric, passenger-grade autonomous aerial vehicle. Later in the month, it was selected as a partner for an urban air mobility initiative in Paris ahead of the 2024 Olympics.

While the future of drones is uncertain, momentum is clearly building for EHang.

Digital marketing company IZEA Worldwide (Nasdaq: IZEA) has been soaring this year as hopes have been building for its new influencer-based marketplace, Shake, and as the company announced several positive developments in recent weeks.

Those include two new contracts from Fortune 10 companies; 47% bookings growth in managed services, its largest business segment, in the fourth quarter; and a new seven-figure marketing contract with a Fortune 100 retailer.

The stock also surged after launching a stock offering for $35 million toward the end of January, which was an unusual move, though investors may be glad to see the company taking advantage of its elevated stock price to invest in the business.

ALSO READ: 3 Tech Stocks That Could Turn $100,000 into $1 Million

3D printing specialist 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD) has jumped early on thanks largely to better-than-expected results in its fourth quarter and the sale of a noncore business that will shore up the company’s balance sheet and allow it to self-fund without further shareholder dilution.

The stock more than doubled on Jan. 7, the day that news came out, as it seemed to mark the beginning of a long-awaited turnaround. The stock continued to rise as the company announced new initiatives in bioprinting and regenerative medicine, technologies that could one day be used to 3D print human organs.

3D printing stocks like 3D Systems famously popped in a bubble nearly a decade ago, and it’s still unclear if the technology will be able to live up to investors’ growing expectations this time around.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) has certainly been a beneficiary of the massive short squeeze, which caused the stock price to quadruple in just one day, on Jan. 27. #SaveAMC was even trending on Twitter that morning, a sign of the group effort to pump the stock. However, there are other reasons for the AMC’s gains this year.

The stock entered the year on the brink of bankruptcy, hit hard by the pandemic, which shuttered movie theaters for several months and is still keeping audiences away. However, CEO Adam Aron announced early last week that the company had come up with enough funding through new debt and shares to put bankruptcy off the table. The gains from that announcement led into the short squeeze, though investors should be aware that the company still faces significant challenges even if it can survive the crisis.

Late last year, Canadian marijuana grower Tilray (Nasdaq: TLRY) said it would merge with fellow Canadian grower Aphria, and since then a number of different news items have helped send shares of Tilray higher.

First, marijuana stocks soared when Democrats won the two U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in Georgia, and that news convinced marijuana investors that federal legalization was a step closer. Then, Tilray soared after Aphria reported a surprise profit in its earnings report in the middle of the month with an adjusted profit of a penny per share after a $0.19 per-share loss in the quarter of a year ago. Revenue jumped 149% as the results lifted Tilray as well ahead of the merger.

Finally, toward the end of the month, Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy said on CNBC that he saw U.S. legalization happening within two years, giving the stock another pop.

ALSO READ: 2 Growth Stocks That Could Realistically Double in 2021

Danimer Scientific (Nasdaq: DNMR), which went public through a SPAC at the end of 2020, has emerged as another unique play on the green energy movement. The company makes biopolymers and other materials that are used for things like plastic flatware, coffee cup wax, bottle seals, and other types of disposable packaging.

The stock has risen as analysts think the company will benefit from increased demand for green solutions to packaging that use less oil and are more biodegradable.

After the surge, the stock is pricey, trading at about 100 times sales, and it’s unprofitable. Like with other green energy stocks, momentum is strong but expectations are especially high.

Yet another winner in the green energy boom is SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWR), a residential solar panel manufacturer, which has also seen its shares surge. Solar stocks in general never really lived up to their earlier hype, but expectations are rising again with the Biden administration in office.

There hasn’t been any major news out on SunPower, but the stock jumped after Democrats took the Senate and as it got several positive analyst notes, in part because of hopes for the Biden energy plan. While the new president hasn’t made any specific calls for solar power, his climate plan is considered ambitious and will push for green energy adoption on a number of fronts, including solar.

SunPower’s panels are considered the most efficient at converting sunlight into energy, giving the company a competitive advantage.

Like some of the other short-squeeze winners, BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BB) is up primarily because of the short squeeze, but there was some good news about the stock earlier in the month. The stock jumped in the middle of the month after BlackBerry settled with Facebook over a patent dispute that started in 2018. Though terms of the agreement were not made public, investors took the news as a positive sign for the smartphone maker.

In the final days of the month, the stock has bounced along with the broader trajectory of short squeezes like GameStop and AMC, and that pattern seems likely to continue. A pullback should be expected given that the stock has already more than doubled on minor news.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

2020 was the most unpredictable year on the stock market in recent memory, and 2021 certainly hasn’t disappointed in terms of volatility. Even beyond the machinations of Reddit traders, there are still plenty of reasons to speculate about what comes next this year.

That includes the vaccine rollout, the end of the pandemic, and what the recovery looks like, as well as new policies from the Biden administration on green energy and other economically sensitive areas.

While it’s certainly strange for so many stocks to have doubled in the first month of the year, it’s a reflection of the times. With volatility comes opportunity.

Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jeremy Bowman owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook and Twitter. The Motley Fool recommends 3D Systems, BlackBerry, and Chewy, Inc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.