Wendy’s Goes Full Meme: How I’m Riding the Reddit Momentum
This is nothing more than a trading vehicle, but a double stack of Wall Street Bets and 38% short interest makes it appetizing.
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It’s more difficult than you think.
I picked up some Wendy’s (WEN) back in mid-May when the shares had fallen to the point that some speculation might be called for. I felt it was too risky for the “$10K Portfolio” so into the “Sarge-folio” Wendy’s went.
Some background… Wendy’s shares had been steadily moving lower since late 2022. It was not very long ago that I remember buying WEN at $20 and change and getting out with a $23 handle, thinking myself a sharp trader.
However, performance across the fast-food chain suffered. I kind of always liked the Wendy’s Double and a cup of chili, but I found in recent years that when I did dine at Wendy’s, I often dined close to alone.
Same-store sales dropped quite sharply and consumers on a budget went elsewhere to meet their fast-food needs. Amid declining global systemwide sales forecasts for the current year, store closures and reduced margins, the company changed gears.
New CEO Bob Wright, who is a former Wendy’s COO, took over in May 2026, succeeding Kirk Tanner, who stepped down in July 2025. Former CFO Ken Cook had filled the role on an interim basis in between. Steve Cirulis was appointed as the new CFO and Chief Strategy Officer earlier this week, which may have prompted this week’s labeling of WEN as a “meme” stock and certainly added to this week’s volatility.
The Spark
First, it is important to note that at last count (June 15), more than 38% of the entire Wendy’s float was held in short positions. That comes to almost 52 million shares of stock that have to be repurchased in a name where less than 157 million shares exist in the public sphere.
On Wednesday of this week, the Wall Street Bets crowd on Reddit got behind the stock with a ‘Save Wendy’s” campaign.
Interesting
Wendy’s is expected to report earnings in early August. Currently Wall Street consensus is for GAAP EPS of $0.17 on revenue of more than $558 million. That would compare to the year-ago comp of $0.29, while reflecting an annual sales contraction of about 0.5%.
Even worse, of the 23 sell-side analysts that I can find, 22 have reduced their earnings estimates for the current quarter.
The Chart
Understand, I am not invested in Wendy’s. This is a trading vehicle. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Readers will see that at the time of the change in executive leadership, WEN broke out of a falling wedge pattern of bullish reversal. Since then, trading this name has really been as simple as selling half of the position at the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) and buying back at the 50-day SMA, while holding the other half no matter what, just in case the Reddit kids really get this thing going.
As mentioned above, this is speculative. It’s money I can afford to lose, not my grocery money. I’m simply trying to play the momentum game being I took the name just ahead of a nice move.
This is house money now. It might be a good idea if one is convinced that they will still be in the name, to go out to August 21 and write $10 (covered) calls against the position for $0.50 a contract.
At the time of publication, Guilfoyle was long WEN equity.
