Superconductors’ Viral ‘LK-99’ Moment Takes Investors for a Wild Ride
stock prices soar and fall as the LK-99 video went viral. The investor attention prompted Shanghai-listed Benefo, which rose 34% in recent days, to clarify that it has no related work now to room-temperature superconductivity.
In the past, a subsidiary had engaged in some high-temperature superconducting research. Meanwhile, Shenzhen-listed TICW pointed out the same lack of a room-temperature superconducting exposure, though its stock price surged roughly 70% this week.
Even if LK-99 were found to exhibit superconductivity, engineers would still need to determine how to implement the material into their products, leaving major steps before any commercialization is considered, said Rino Choi, a materials engineering professor at Inha University in South Korea. He said the recent findings appear to be “too primitive." On Tuesday, a team led by a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, released a video on China’s YouTube-like platform, claiming they had verified the synthesis of the LK-99 crystal that can magnetically levitate for the first time, with a larger levitation angle than the previous sample obtained by the South Korean team.
By Friday evening, the video had millions of views, generated some 740,000 likes and received more than 65,000 comments. Calls to Huazhong went unanswered.
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