Reddit stock traders boost Wendy’s to fresh highs in a collective bid to ‘save’ the fast food brand

Meme stock traders have found a new company to “save”: The Wendy’s Company. The fast food chain saw its shares (Nasdaq: WEN) rise over 19% in premarket trading on Thursday morning as pockets of the internet—primarily Reddit’s r/Wall Street Bets—rallied for the company’s success. The overnight jump follows a Wednesday close that was up more than 25%. One of the earliest Reddit posts came yesterday with a picture showing Wendy’s stock price down more than 72% over the last five years. It read: “We need to save Wendy’s.” Like many retail businesses, restaurant chains have suffered in the face of reduced foot traffic and expendable incomes. Wendy’s has been executing a turnaround plan that includes closing hundreds of stores. Since the recent rally began, Reddit users have shared a number of Wendy’s-focused memes, such as one of Matthew McConaughey’s Wolf of Wall Street character with Wendy’s signature red hair saying, “You gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers.” The actual post read, “When you only buy one meals worth of wendys stocks.” Pointing to the bandwagon nature of the meme stock rallies, a moderator commented: “You submitted three very similar Wendy’s memes in rapid succession. I’ll approve this one since it has the most traction, but please be considerate of the rest of the feed and the other stocks not named Wendy’s.” Wendy’s shares were up about 13% as of publication and could be at a six-month high when the stock market opens. Fast Company has reached out to Wendy’s for comment on its new status as a meme stock. We will update this post if we hear back. Legitimate reasons to be excited about Wendy’s As much as meme traders might want to take all the credit for Wendy’s share growth, a few new executive hires are likely also a factor. Wendy’s announced this week that it’s bringing in a new chief financial officer and chief strategy officer. The hire, Steve Cirulis, comes from fast-casual chain Potbelly Sandwic