The Archer Materials Ltd (ASX: AXE) share price has shed all the gains it made this week, despite no news having been released by the company.
The fall comes after Archer's shares soared 13.5% yesterday on news of a US patent.
Right now, the Archer share price is $2.17, 18.73% lower than it was at yesterday's close.
The fall seems to have been driven by a sell-off. At the time of writing, more than 4.5 million shares in Archer have been traded today. For comparison, over the past 4 weeks, an average day saw around 2.34 million of Archer's securities swapping hands.
Let's take a closer look at the most recent news from Archer Materials.
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What's weighing on Archer?
Yesterday, the Archer share price reached a new record high of $3.08 during intraday trade. The gains followed news of the company's US patent for its biochip technology.
Archer announced the patent has entered the National Phase of the granting process and has been assigned a US application number. According to Archer, advancing to the US's National Phase is key for the granting of a patent internationally. Additionally, the company stated patents are needed if it hopes to successfully commercialise its product in the semiconductor industry.
In other news that could be driving the Archer share price lower today, a report out of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) has claimed the company is a 'meme-stock'. In fact, the AFR went further and named Archer the "meme-stock asset class' new frontrunner".
The publication stated meme-stocks are subject to "befuddled valuations across the market where online forums and social trading determine valuations far more than estimates of future cash flows".
The publication also stated, while Archer has a valuation of more than $600 million, it has "only a handful of staff, no product, and [it] spent just $2.6 million in operating expenses last year".
Archer share price snapshot
Despite today's dip, the Archer share price is still well into the ASX green.
Right now, shares in the company are trading for 317% more than they were at the start of 2021. They have also gained 325% since this time last year.
