Energy Vault Stock Is Soaring. The Reason Is Obscure.

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Sometimes the market can be tough to figure out.

Shares of energy storage player

Energy Vault Holdings

(ticker: NRGV) are up 34% in midday trading Friday. The

S&P 500
and

Dow Jones Industrial Average
are down about 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.

There is no news on the company. There are no analysts launching coverage of Energy Vault stock. A company representative couldn’t point to any reason for the jump, either.

The company did recently complete its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, on Feb. 10. Sometimes institutional buyers can wait until SPAC mergers wrap up before buying into a stock. Why any buyers waited until Thursday and Friday is anyone’s guess.

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Energy Vault stock also rose 13.6% in Thursday trading. Shares are up about 30% for the week in volatile trading. The S&P 500 is down about 1% for the week.

Whatever the reason there are certainly more buyers than sellers lately. Coming into the week, Energy Vault stock traded an average of roughly 550,000 shares a day. Over the past two days, more than 21 million shares have changed hands.

Energy Vault stores energy, like a battery, in an unusual way. It uses kinetic energy, hoisting heavy blocks into the air. Those blocks can be lowered slowly, and used to turn motors to generate electricity when needed.

Energy Vault’s technology can be used by companies looking to control their own backup power generation. It can also be used by utilities to make renewable power assets such as wind and solar farms more reliable.

Energy, for instance, can be stored when the wind is blowing, and released when it’s not.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]