Avis Stock Is Plummeting After a Chaotic Week. Is It the Latest Meme Stock to Fall?

Avis Budget (NASDAQ: CAR) stock has posted big gains in April, but the rental-car specialist's share price took a dramatic step back in Thursday's trading. The company's share price closed out the day's trading down roughly 48%.

What was the big driver behind the huge valuation pullback? The truth is that there doesn't appear to be any major business-specific catalysts behind the torrential wave of sell-offs. Instead, the pullback appears to be a reaction to the meme-stock driven valuation gains recorded by the company.

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While Avis stock now trades down roughly 68% from the high point it reached in 2026, the stock is still up roughly 129% over the last month. What comes next?

What's driving Avis stock's incredible volatility?

Despite some recent pullbacks, major stock market indexes have recently notched new all-time highs -- and the bullish momentum for the broader market has corresponded with a resurgence in meme-stock trading. The U.S. rental-car industry has played host to some unexpectedly massive rallies thanks to the trend, and companies including Hertz and Avis have seen big valuation run-ups despite little in the way of major business-specific news.

Investors seemingly identified mismatches in supply and-demand dynamics for high-profile names in the rental-car space, and order differences for Avis's float apparently laid the foundations for buying momentum that powered huge gains for the company's share price. On the other hand, today's massive pullback for the stock suggests that the run-up may have been built on sand.

What comes next for Avis stock?

Even with a huge pullback today, Avis's share price has still more than doubled over the last month. More importantly, there appears to be little relevant news for the company that can justify the stock's gains over the stretch, even after a huge pullback.

Charting the near-term performance of meme stocks involves an incredibly high degree of speculation and is virtually impossible to do with any meaningful level of consistency. The same largely unpredictable dynamics that pave the way for stocks like Avis to see incredible run-ups despite little in the way of bullish business-specific news also set the stage for potentially massive share-price declines when speculative buying appetites fade.

While Avis's meme-stock status could spur additional bullish surges in the near term, the company looks like a very risky investment proposition right now. On a fundamental basis, there is little reason to think that Avis can sustain the valuation gains that it has posted over the last month. Increased support from meme-stock investors could help buttress current valuation levels and even reinvigorate rallies, but the fact that the company's share price declined by nearly half in a single daily trading session on what effectively amounts to zero business-specific news highlights just how risky the stock is right now.

Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.