Overstock Shares Jump On Morgan Stanley Stake

Online discount retailer Overstock saw its stock jump more than 23 percent in trading Monday (Dec. 11) after Morgan Stanley Investment Management said it had acquired an 11.4 percent stake in the company.

According to a CNBC report, the Morgan Stanley unit said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing late last week that it now owns close to 2.87 million shares of Overstock as of the end of November. A 13G filing is usually required for passive investors possessing a stake between 5 and 20 percent, but neither Morgan Stanley Investment Managment nor Overstock.com has commented on it.

With the jump in shares, Overstock was on track to have its best performing day since Nov. 9 when shares jumped more than 30 percent thanks to a call out by Wall Street firm D.A. Davidson. The entity said at the time that the stock could jump 60 percent.

Analyst Tom Forte reported Overstock may sell its home goods and furniture eCommerce unit so as to focus on bitcoin blockchain technology. The company’s stock has received a boost since it said it would launch a digital coin trading platform via its tZero subsidiary and would raise money for it via an initial coin offering (ICO). All told, Overstock’s shares have risen 200 percent in 2017.

The stock has also benefited from a rise in the value of bitcoin, which started the year at $1,000 per coin and was trading at higher than $16,500 on Monday. In August, Overstock announced a partnership with digital asset exchange company ShapeShift. Through this pairing, any one of Overstock’s customers will now have the option of making a purchase by using available cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash and Bitcoin Cash. With the move, Overstock became the first major retailer to accept multiple forms of cryptocurrencies as payment.