Allbirds Plunges Over 50% After Rebrand to NewBirdAI

Shares of Allbirds, which now trades as NewBirdAI, fell to $7.57 after dropping more than 50% from a recent intraday high above $16. The company announced a plan to exchange its footwear and apparel operations for $50 million to finance construction of AI data centers.

The stock’s earlier surge pushed the price roughly 750% from prior levels to above $16 before it corrected to a lower trading range. Trading liquidity declined sharply: daily dollar volume fell from more than $288 million to about $1.9 million, according to Nasdaq data dated April 24.

Short open interest rose to 18.4% of the company’s free float. Days to cover declined from about 11.73 in mid-March to 4.17 most recently, and stocks to cover were calculated at 0.16 days. Prime brokerages reported roughly 35,000 shares available to borrow for new short positions.

The company has a relatively small free float and a limited number of borrowable shares. Those conditions coincided with the recent large intraday price swings during the rally and subsequent decline.

BIRD has not been converted into a meme stock or tokenized for trading on crypto-perpetual futures platforms. Some firms that have pivoted to AI infrastructure have seen notable year-to-date gains; for example, TerraWulf reported roughly an 80% gain so far this year.

Investors and market participants are expected to monitor the company’s disclosures on the asset swap and any updates to the timeline for the sale, along with trading volumes and availability of shares to borrow, for indications of renewed volatility.