What's Going On With Riot Shares Friday?

Riot Platforms, Inc. RIOT stock is moving lower on Friday amid weakness in Bitcoin BTC/USD.

What Happened: Bitcoin is currently trading down 3.55% at around $63,111.

Riot stock is currently moving below its 50 day moving average of $10.2 and towards the lower end of its 52 week range. The company’s 52 week range is between $7.8 and $19.2. Riot shares are trading at $8.89. Other crypto-linked stocks, such as MicroStrategy Inc. MSTR, are also trading lower amid weakness in Bitcoin.

Earlier this week, Riot reported worse-than-expected earnings for the 2024 fiscal year second quarter. The company reported a loss of 32 cents per share missing analyst estimates of a loss of 14 cents per share and sales of $70.01 million missing analyst estimates of $72.22 million.

Analyst Changes: Several analysts issued price target adjustments following the second quarter earnings report.

• HC Wainwright & Co. analyst Mike Colonnese reiterated Riot Platforms with a Buy and maintained $17 price target.
• Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch reiterated Riot Platforms with a Overweight and maintained a $23 price target.
• Needham analyst John Todaro maintained Riot Platforms with a Buy and raised the price target from $13 to $14.

How To Buy Riot Platform Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Riot Platforms RIOT – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy ‘fractional shares,' which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share. For example, some stock, like Berkshire Hathaway, or Amazon.com, can cost thousands of dollars to own just one share. However, if you only want to invest a fraction of that, brokerages will allow you to do so.

In the case of Riot Platforms RIOT, which is trading at $8.87 as of publishing time, $100 would buy you 11.2 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to ‘go short' a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

See Also: MicroStrategy Stock Has Soared 1200% Since Adding Bitcoin to Its Balance Sheet, Outpacing Nvidia’s Returns: What You Should Know

RIOT Price Action: Riot stock is trading 7.56% lower at $8.61 at the time of writing per data from Benzinga Pro.

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