'Dash for Trash' – The Carvana Edition

Carvana Vending Machine in Indianapolis demolished to make way for highway. (WRTV)

I have one question to ask...

Has everybody lost their minds?

I may have been a few weeks early with my "Welcome to Fantasyland" essay last month, but this is a market you could see coming.

We were clearly entering the "silly season," as a broker I met early in my career used to call these types of periods in the 1990s.

The signs were all there... but perhaps nothing signaled its arrival (to me, at least) more than online used-car retailer Carvana (CVNA).

Since I wrote that "Fantasyland" essay, Carvana's stock has more than doubled – spiking at one point this week by more than 50% in a single bound. But to give that some perspective, since its low point in April the stock is up more than 500%... and up more than 1,000% from its December lows.

Never mind that Carvana is down nearly 90% from its peak-memefied high back in August 2021...

Or that I once referred to it as the poster child of the "dash for trash"...

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