What a rollercoaster the Novonix Ltd (ASX: NVX) share price has been on in recent weeks. Last week, the battery metals company delighted investors with a whopping near-27% gain. Yes, Novonix shares rose from $2.02 to $2.56 by the end of last week, a gain of 26.73%.
But this week has been far more muted for the company. Yesterday saw the Novonix share price shed a painful 5.47% to finish at $2.42 a share. That has only been somewhat assuaged by the 2.07% gain to $2.47 we have seen at market close today. So what on earth is going on here?
Well, let's start with last week. As my Fool colleague Monica covered at the time, Novonix shares seemed to get an almighty boost from the comments of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.
As head of the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, Musk obviously has some insights into the lithium industry. So investors seemed to take it very seriously when Musk declared the following:
So it is basically like minting money right now. There's like software margins in lithium processing right now.
Since Novonix is a lithium processor, investors were clearly excited. Enough to send the Novonix share price up almost 27% anyway.
But what of this week?
Why is the Novonix share price struggling this week?
Well, there's been no additional news or developments out from Novonix. So perhaps Novonix shares have been caught up in the woes that have hit ASX tech shares this week. After a stellar week last week, many ASX tech shares have taken a hammering so far.
As my Fool colleague covered yesterday, ASX tech shares have come under pressure following some recent heavy selling in the equivalent sector in the US. This comes after some disappointing earnings reports, from social media company Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP) in particular.
So even though Novonix isn't a social media share, it looks as though its shares have been caught up in this anxiety nonetheless.
Whatever the reason, no doubt investors will be hoping the rest of the week is kinder to Novonix shares. But we shall have to wait and see.
In the meantime, the current Novonix share price gives this ASX battery tech share a market capitalisation of $1.21 billion.
