Leaked Information and Kodak Stock

On Monday, July 27 2020, a local news affiliate in Rochester, NY (home of Kodak HQ) tweeted that a "BIG announcement" was coming concerning a deal between Kodak and the federal government. This set off a week of unprecedented trading activity in the company's stock (KODK).

At around 12pm on Monday, the following was tweeted and deleted some time later:

"BIG announcement expected tomorrow from Kodak and the U.S. government regarding "a new manufacturing initiative." News 8 WROC Rochester will be all over it."

twitter post

In the next 30 minutes, about $800k was invested in the stock, which pushed the price up 14% from the morning's open. A Redditor picked up on the story later that afternoon, posting it to r/pennystocks and retweeting the details:

retweet kodak info

This also appears to have moved the stock, as we see another $500k invested in about 30 minutes after the post, and the price climbing to +22% on the day.

Monday, July 27 - Leaks, Price and Notional Volume of KODK

2.002.052.102.152.202.252.302.352.402.452.502.552.60Stock PriceNotional Traded Per 15 Minutes0k37k73k110k147k183k220k257k293k330k367k404k440k09:3013:00Mon-Jul-27Notional:$4M16:00Twitter leakRedditpost+14%+22%

Compared with the next couple days, Monday's activity is pretty much invisible. While the $4 million traded on Monday is a lot for KODK, the next day we see $2 billion flood into the company ahead of the official announcement at the end of day.

$2 Billion Trades Before the Official Announcement

05101520253035404550Stock PriceNotional Traded Per 15 Minutes0M45M89M134M177M222M267M311M356M399M444M09:3013:00Mon-Jul-27Notional:$4M16:0013:00Tue-Jul-28Notional:$2,098M16:0013:00Wed-Jul-29Notional:$6,883M16:00Leaks$534M tradesat openOfficialAnnouncement+386%+892%$767M tradesat open+2382%

Following the announcement that the government would provide Kodak with a $765M loan to manufacture drug ingredients, at Wednesday's open KODK was up almost 900% on the week.

Robinhood account data shows retail interest rising on Tuesday, although Robinhood accounts for a small portion of overall trading activity. About 20,000 Robinhood accounts added KODK on Tuesday, while the stock was traded 867,308 times according to market-wide data reported by IEX, with more than 10,000 trades per minute during peak activity. Big thanks to Robintrack for sharing access to their data.

KODK Price and Robinhood Account Holdings

05101520253035404550Stock Price0k13k25k37k50k62k75k87k99k112k124kNumber of Robinhood AccountsJul-27Jul-28Jul-29

With a flood of buyers chasing the stock, and sell-side liquidity drying up, the price briefly climbed above $50 before pulling back. KODK shares ended the week at $21.85, which is near where it opened on Wednesday after the official announcement, but about ten times higher than Monday's open at $2.15.