Shares of GT Advanced, the Apple supplier that on Monday declared bankruptcy, were up as much as 100% in afternoon trade just one day later.
Shares of GT Advanced closed at $0.80 on Monday afternoon and traded as high as $1.63 on Tuesday.
The action in GT Advanced on Tuesday is likely due to a few things, though none of this really suggests investors think the company is in great shape.
According to data from Google Finance, more than 147 million shares of GT Advanced have changed hands so far on Tuesday, which according to GT's latest quarterly filing with the SEC is more than the roughly 137 million shares that were outstanding as of August 1.
This suggests that traders are flipping this thing like crazy trying to time small bottoms and tops in the stock's intraday price.
There is also probably a small cadre of investors, though not a huge number, that are betting equity holders of GT Advanced will get something back after the company goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
On Friday the stock was trading at about $11 per share, and so the rough equity value of the company was about $1.6 billion. In bankruptcy court, equity holders are the first to get wiped out, so there is a very real possibility anybody holding common stock in GT Advanced will get nothing.
In a note to clients on Tuesday, UBS analyst Stephen Chin wrote that, estimating the company's book value — or roughly the amount of money that would be left for shareholders in a bankruptcy proceeding — at around $100 million, the stock could be worth $0.75.
But that's probably best case.
Worst case, you're wiped out as a shareholder, and Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said GT Advanced shares are most likely worthless at this point.
And as the folks at StreetInsider noted on Tuesday, stocks on the Nasdaq that initiate bankruptcy proceedings currently maintain their listing for about nine days.
After that, the stock will trade under the ticker 'GTATQ,' and it's possible the stock could be de-listed by October 14.
So day traders should have their fun while it lasts.