The Kuniko Limited (ASX: KNI) share price has sunk well into the red on Monday's session.
At the market close, Kuniko shares were changing hands at $2.29 apiece, a 14.55% drop from the open this morning.
Let's investigate further.
Quick recap on Kuniko
Kuniko is a mineral exploration company that has interests in the development of non-lithium battery metals.
The company was formed by a spinoff from Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd (ASX: VUL) at the end of July, in a heavily oversubscribed initial public offering (IPO).
Located in Norway, Kuniko targets cobalt, nickel and copper prospects — three battery metals used particularly in electric vehicles.
At the time of writing, the company has a market capitalisation of $142.5 million.
What's up with the Kuniko share price lately?
There is no market-sensitive information that relates to the company today. However, Kuniko shares have been on a wild ride since floating on the ASX back in July.
Arguably, the most interesting observation in the company's journey since listing has been the volatility in its share price. Let's dive into this a bit deeper to fully understand.
Firstly, the Kuniko share price zoomed from 76 cents on 25 August to close at $2.17 the day after. That's a 186% increase on the day.
However, at one point during the day, Kuniko shares were exchanging hands at a high of $3.60, and a low of 80 cents. Taking the spread between these two prices, we see it is a 375% difference!
What's more is that this exchange occurred on a tremendous volume of almost 36 million shares, which is about 90% of Kuniko's fully diluted number of shares outstanding.
In the week following, the Kuniko share price continued its ascent northwards, with a similar display of volatility across each day.
After the company announced its new CEO on 1 September, the Kuniko share price soared 19% higher on the day to close at $3.23.
It closed at $2.94 the day after, a 9% decrease. However, before it dropped to that level, it traded in an intraday range of $2.76 to $3.38 – a 22.5% spread in prices during that session.
Now almost a week later, the Kuniko share price is back down by approximately 18%.
Foolish takeaway
Kuniko shares are displaying a great deal of volatility since listing back in July.
This volatility has caused a wide range in which the Kuniko share price has traded. Volatility is not necessarily a driver of share price changes, but is certainly a result of underlying market forces that do cause these short-term fluctuations.
