Beyond Meat: The $500 Lesson That Turned Into $100

Imagine dropping $500 on Beyond Meat stock a year ago. Sounds like a solid plant-based protein play, right? Wrong.

Here’s the brutal reality: your $500 would be worth just $100 today. That’s an 80% loss.

Meanwhile, if you’d put that same $500 into the S&P 500 index? You’d be sitting on about $569 right now.

What Went Wrong?

Beyond Meat became a straight-up meme stock after October social media hype kicked in. The price swung wildly—from $0.52 (Oct 16) to $3.62 (Oct 21), then crashed back down to $1 by mid-November.

But the real problem isn’t the meme magic. It’s the business itself.

Q3 revenue dropped 13.3% to $70.2 million. Product volume is sliding. Translation: consumers aren’t buying as much, and no amount of Reddit posts changes that.

The Takeaway

Meme stocks make headlines. They don’t make money. Unless you see actual revenue growth and real demand bouncing back, Beyond Meat’s stock isn’t the play.

This is why boring index funds beat sexy meme stocks over time.