NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2025, 3:54 a.m. ET — Market closed
TMC the metals company Inc. (NASDAQ: TMC) heads into the final week of 2025 on a sharp pullback after holiday-thin trading amplified volatility across individual names. Shares of the deep-sea mining hopeful finished Friday’s regular session at $6.82, down roughly 10.5% on the day, after trading between $6.61 and $7.68 on volume of about 11.6 million shares—above its recent average. [1]
The broader tape offered little help: U.S. stocks ended a quiet, light-volume post-Christmas session essentially flat-to-down, with the major indexes slipping only marginally as investors “caught their breath” after a strong stretch, according to Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, speaking to Reuters. [2]
With U.S. markets closed for the weekend, the question for TMC investors is less about what happened on Friday and more about what could drive the next decisive move when trading resumes Monday—especially with a new, clearly defined U.S. regulatory calendar now in play for deep seabed mining.
Friday’s TMC move: big drop, thin liquidity, and a return of “risk math”
TMC’s Friday decline stood out mainly because it occurred without a fresh company press release or a newly dated SEC filing pointing to a single obvious trigger. TMC’s investor-relations SEC filings page lists the most recent filings in early December, not over the last couple of days. [3]
Instead, several market commentaries framed the move as a classic year-end setup: thin liquidity plus a high-volatility stock can produce exaggerated swings. TalkMarkets described the Friday selloff as a liquidity-driven slide rather than a reaction to a specific operational catalyst. [4]
A separate note from the Trefis Team leaned into fundamentals, arguing the market is repeatedly repricing TMC around two central uncertainties: the company’s path through permitting and the cost of bridging to an eventual production target. [5]
That framing matters for the coming week because it highlights what tends to move TMC most: not quarterly revenue (the company is still pre-revenue), but regulatory milestones, financing expectations, and sentiment-driven positioning.
The near-term catalyst investors are watching: NOAA comment period and January hearings
The most time-specific development influencing the TMC narrative right now is the U.S. government’s formal process around exploration licensing.
On December 23, 2025, NOAA published a Federal Register notice announcing receipt of applications tied to deep seabed mining exploration licenses and setting a public comment period and virtual public hearings. The notice lists:
- Comment deadline:February 23, 2026
- Virtual public hearings:January 27–28, 2026 (3 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET each day) [6]
NOAA’s own deep seabed mining hub page also lays out the same timeline and identifies the applications as associated with The Metals Company USA (TMC USA), reinforcing that these dates are now part of the public record and likely to generate periodic headlines as the process advances. [7]
Why this matters for TMC stock: the market tends to treat TMC as an “event-driven” name, where regulatory steps can shift perceived probability of eventual commercialization—often quickly, and sometimes violently.
For readers who don’t live in the weeds of marine policy: deep-sea mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction remains politically and scientifically contentious, and the U.S. has to balance critical-mineral supply goals against environmental risk concerns. A Congressional Research Service report notes that deep-seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction has yet to occur and outlines the competing policy and environmental considerations. [8]
What TMC itself has been saying: timeline, liquidity, and the permitting “if”
In its most recent quarterly corporate update (Nov. 13, 2025), TMC emphasized progress on technical studies and reiterated that commercialization depends on permits.
Notably, TMC said it expects to start commercial production in Q4 2027, if it receives a commercial recovery permit. [9]
The same release highlighted liquidity and runway. Gerard Barron, TMC’s chairman and CEO, said the company had $121 million of cash following warrant exercises after quarter end and $165 million of total liquidity including undrawn credit facilities, adding that the company had “no need to come to the public markets anytime soon.” [10]
TMC also reported (for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025) an operating loss and a much larger net loss, alongside cash used in operations—figures that analysts and skeptics frequently cite when debating how long the company can fund permitting, engineering, and partnerships before needing additional capital. [11]
Put simply: bulls tend to focus on the size and strategic value of the nodule resource and the possibility of a clearer U.S. regulatory route; bears tend to focus on the time, cost, and uncertainty between “applications under review” and “cash-generating production.”
Wall Street outlook: price targets point to upside, but the range screams uncertainty
Consensus forecasts for TMC vary by data provider, but the common thread is a wide dispersion—a signal that analysts see multiple plausible futures.
- MarketBeat shows a consensus rating of “Hold” (based on five analyst ratings) and a consensus price target of $7.42, with estimates ranging from $3.75 to $11.00. [12]
- TipRanks shows an average price target of $8.33 (based on three analysts) with a high of $11.00 and a low of $6.50, and labels the consensus “Strong Buy” under its methodology. [13]
- TradingView lists an analyst target around $8.00, with the same general high/low bracket ($11.00 / $6.50). [14]
MarketBeat’s compiled analyst-history table also identifies specific firms and analysts that have recently been in the mix for TMC—useful context for investors tracking changes in tone:
- HC Wainwright analyst Heiko F. Ihle boosted a target (per MarketBeat’s listing), and
- Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives is listed among prior coverage actions. [15]
One caution for readers: targets on a pre-revenue, permit-dependent company can function less like a “12-month earnings math” exercise and more like a probability-weighted bet on regulation, financing, and eventual execution. That’s why the range matters as much as the average.
Positioning risk: short interest remains meaningful
Another accelerant for TMC’s volatility is positioning.
MarketBeat’s latest short-interest snapshot (as of Dec. 15, 2025) shows about 28.27 million shares sold short—roughly 9.44% of the public float—with a days-to-cover ratio of 2.9 based on average trading volume. [16]
That’s not “meme-stock extreme,” but it’s enough that surprise headlines—positive or negative—can trigger sharp moves as traders adjust exposure quickly.
What investors should know before Monday’s session
Because it’s the weekend, there’s no new regular-session price discovery until Monday. Here’s what matters going into the next open:
1) Trading hours and the year-end calendar
TMC trades on Nasdaq, where pre-market activity is typically 4:00–9:30 a.m. ET, with after-hours 4:00–8:00 p.m. ET—sessions that can be significantly thinner than the regular market. [17]
The NYSE’s market-hours reference also underscores the standard 9:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m. ET core session framework investors use as the baseline for U.S. equities liquidity. [18]
And for the week ahead: U.S. stocks have a full trading day on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31), and markets are closed on New Year’s Day (Jan. 1, 2026), according to Investopedia’s holiday schedule recap. [19]
(Translation: late-December trading can stay choppy simply because many desks are lightly staffed and liquidity can be patchy.)
2) Watch the regulatory headline flow, not just earnings calendars
For TMC, the concrete dates in the NOAA/Federal Register process are likely to act like “gravity wells” for attention: comment activity, stakeholder letters, and hearing registration can all create bursts of coverage. [20]
3) Expect bigger swings when volume is thin
Reuters’ description of Friday’s broader market as low-catalyst and light-volume is exactly the backdrop where a high-beta stock can gap more than usual on relatively small order imbalances. [21]
4) The core debate hasn’t changed—time, permits, money
TMC points to liquidity and long runway; skeptics point to the distance to 2027 and the inherent difficulty of underwriting a regulatory-and-engineering story. Both arguments are visible in recent corporate disclosures and fresh market commentary. [22]
Bottom line
TMC stock enters Monday’s session after a steep, volume-heavy drop that appears more tied to year-end volatility dynamics and risk repricing than to a single new corporate headline. But the bigger narrative driver—U.S. permitting—has become more calendar-driven, with NOAA’s comment period and January hearings now clearly defined.
For investors, the practical takeaway heading into the next session is straightforward: TMC trades like a regulatory headline machine. In a thin year-end market, that’s a recipe for outsized moves in either direction—especially with meaningful short interest and widely dispersed analyst targets.
References
1. investors.metals.co, 2. www.reuters.com, 3. investors.metals.co, 4. talkmarkets.com, 5. www.trefis.com, 6. www.federalregister.gov, 7. oceanservice.noaa.gov, 8. www.congress.gov, 9. investors.metals.co, 10. investors.metals.co, 11. investors.metals.co, 12. www.marketbeat.com, 13. www.tipranks.com, 14. www.tradingview.com, 15. www.marketbeat.com, 16. www.marketbeat.com, 17. www.nasdaq.com, 18. www.nyse.com, 19. www.investopedia.com, 20. www.federalregister.gov, 21. www.reuters.com, 22. investors.metals.co
