The stock price of Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND) is currently plunging in early-morning trading, with shares down nearly 20% as of the time of this writing, valuing them at just 41 cents apiece.
That is a record low price and a dramatic slide for a company whose shares once traded at nearly $240 each.
It’s natural to assume Beyond Meat’s stock price fall this morning might have something to do with its lackluster Q2 2026 financial results, which the company reported on August 5.
But the main driver of today’s stock price fall is another bit of news the company announced only today: It will initiate a reverse stock split—and for a reason that no investor wants to hear. Here’s what you need to know.
Beyond Meat announces 1-for-30 reverse stock split
This morning, Beyond Meat announced that it intends to initiate a reverse stock split. The move will see every 30 shares of BYND combined into one new share.
Normally, when a company announces a stock split, it’s of the standard variety in which a company divides its current shares into more shares.
These standard splits result in a lower stock price, which can make the stock more appealing to retail investors, and thus ultimately help boost interest in the stock, while the underlying value of the company remains the same pre- and post-split.
A reverse split is just the opposite of this.
In a reverse split, a company combines its existing shares, which reduces the total number of shares available. This reduction in shares means each new existing share is worth more in proportion to the split ratio.
For example, in a 1-to-30 reverse split, as Beyond Meat is doing, its post-reverse-split share price will be thirty times higher than its pre-reverse-split share price.
Why is Beyond Meat reverse-splitting its shares?
It is rare for a company to have a positive reason to undertake a reverse split of its shares. The move is nearly always made so the company’s shares can remain listed on the stock exchange where they currently trade.
Major stock exchanges, like the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), have rules in place: In order for a company’s stock to remain listed on the market, it needs to stay above a certain price.
If it falls below that price for a set of consecutive days, usually 30, the company’s stock will be delisted if the price does not rise above the threshold again within a set amount of time.
The threshold for delisting on both the Nasdaq and NYSE is set at $1. If a stock trades below that price for 30 consecutive days, the company has six months to get its stock price at or above $1 for 10 consecutive days, or its shares will be delisted.
According to data from Yahoo Finance, BYND shares have closed below $1 per share since early May, putting the company at risk of being delisted by Nasdaq.
Announcing its 1-for-30 reverse split, Beyond Meat said the move “is intended to help the Company regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.”
“We believe the reverse stock split is an important step toward maintaining our Nasdaq listing and better positioning our stock for long-term investor participation,” Beyond Meat’s CEO, Ethan Brown, added.
How is BYND stock reacting to the news?
Not well. As of this writing, BYND shares are trading down nearly 20% to 41 cents apiece. That’s the lowest level the shares have ever traded at.
Year-to-date, BYND shares have now fallen more than 36%. Over the past 12 months, BYND shares are down more than 80%.
Looking back even farther, BYND shares have collapsed by more than 99% in the past 5 years.
When will Beyond Meat’s shares begin trading at their reverse split price?
Beyond Meat says it expects the reverse stock split to become effective at 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 13.
That means BYND shares should begin trading at their new reverse-split adjusted price on Friday, August 14.
What will BYND shares trade at post-reverse-split?
It’s impossible to know what BYND’s Friday opening share price will be post-reverse split because there are still several trading days between now and when the reverse split takes place, and the stock will likely continue to fluctuate in that time.
However, assuming BYND shares end trading on Thursday at around their current price—roughly 41 cents—it would mean that on Friday morning, BYND shares would begin trading at roughly $12.30 each.
That, of course, doesn’t mean the company will be thirty times more valuable. On Friday, there will also be 30 times fewer shares of the company available, meaning its opening Friday market cap will be the same as its closing Thursday market cap.
What that artificial stock price boost will achieve is putting Beyond Meat comfortably in a trading price that leaves it far from the Nasdaq’s sub-$1 delisting threshold.
It should be noted that though reverse stock splits are relatively rare, they aren’t unheard of.
In the last several years, sports streaming service FuboTV (NYSE: FUBO), electric vehicle maker Lucid Group (Nasdaq: LCID), EV charging company ChargePoint Holdings (NYSE: CHPT), electric vehicle maker Nikola (ticker: NKLA), and space tourism company Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) all carried out reverse stock splits.
