The small Australian technology company Brainchip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN) has enjoyed a spectacular 178% rise in its share price so far this year.
Just this month, it has rocketed a staggering 213%.
That's a pretty crazy climb by anyone's standards.
So what's going on?
This is the official news from the company
The answer is, officially, nothing.
The only news the company has posted to the ASX in 2024 is a fairly benign quarterly activities report, which made no ripples in the stock price at the time.
In fact, it made the ASX suspicious enough that last week it sent the tech company a "speeding ticket" to enquire if it knew why the stock was soaring so much.
Brainchip management answered that it was not aware of any reason why the shares have rocketed so violently this year.
Thus we can only make some educated guesses.
So what could be driving the Brainchip share price?
The most likely reason is that, as an artificial intelligence (AI) chip maker, the hype around that technology is whipping speculators into a frenzy for Brainchip.
The poster child of the AI revolution, Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA), has seen its stock rise 63% this year, or a dizzying 232% if you go back 12 months.
This may well be inducing get-rich-quick traders to pile onto anything related to AI.
Back during the COVID-19 pandemic, Brainchip shares were known to be something of a meme stock, where speculators often discussed it in online forums.
One of those discussion boards, HotCopper, is showing that the "2024 BrainChip Discussion" conversation thread is lighting up.
A vomit-inducing rollercoaster ride
The speculative nature of the stock is shown in the volatility over the last few years.
The Brainchip share price was languishing at just 5 cents when the pandemic arrived in Australia. By January 2022, it had rocketed to around $1.76.
Then as recently as late January, the stock was just moving sideways around 16 cents.
Now on Friday afternoon, the tech stock is trading a mighty 20.9% higher at 52 cents.
Brainchip chief executive Sean Hehir is due to host a Virtual Investors Roadshow on Tuesday morning, which could make for fascinating viewing.
