Clean Energy Fuels stock soars more than 30% as retail traders pick new meme stocks

A new day means new targets for the retail trading crowd.

Shares of Clean Energy Fuels surged 29.3% by 1:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, coinciding with mentions of the company jumping on internet chat boards.

Clean Energy Fuels was the second-most discussed name among retail traders in last few hours before the bell Wednesday, according to data from HypeEquity.

However, enthusiasm in some of the meme stocks may be fading, with shares of ContextLogic losing their double-digit gain within an hour after markets opened Wednesday. The stock traded about 2% lower as of 1:30 p.m. ET. ContextLogic is known as Wish.com, an e-commerce platform.

The sudden interest in the renewable natural gas company and e-commerce name follows similar retail trader activity in stocks including AMC, GameStop, Wendy’s and BlackBerry. At one point on Tuesday, shares of Clover more than doubled. Clover shares turned lower after an initial pop Wednesday.

Newport Beach, California-based Clean Energy Fuels has a relatively small float at 66%, meaning the stock can be more easily manipulated. And about 8% of its float is sold short, according to data from FactSet.

ContextLogic has an even smaller portion of its shares available on the open market, with float just 54.5% of the shares outstanding. Roughly 11% of the company’s shares are sold short.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer weighed in on the sudden ascent in Clean Energy Fuels, saying investors should “be careful … the company’s had no real revenue growth and almost no profitability in a decade.”

The trading activity in Clean Energy Fuels has been building over the last few days, and on Tuesday more than 44 million shares changed hands. This compares to a 30-day average volume of just under 9 million shares traded daily.