Lithium Corporation of America shares soared 461% for the year in 1954 due to the company’s connection to the U.S. hydrogen bomb project, code name Operation Castle.
UCLA professor Armen Alchian, while working at RAND, successfully identified lithium deuteride as the fusion fuel through publicly available financial data.
At the time, Lithium Corporation of America was involved in mining lithium-bearing ores.
Despite the top-secret nature of the project, Alchian concluded that some investors must have purchased the stock based on insider information, due to Lithium Corp’s rapid and significant stock price movement, especially in the lead-up to and following the H-bomb test.
He tried to publish his findings but was forbidden by the U.S. government for national security reasons.
