GameStop, little diva that she is, is in the spotlight once more after shares of the company skyrocketed more than 100% on Wednesday.
In the last 30 minutes of the day’s trading, the American video game retailer’s shares were up by a whopping 103.9% — a shocking rally that resulted in trading on the company’s shares being temporarily halted. That increase continued to climb in after-hours trading, when it shot up by another 100%.
The buying frenzy seemed to be correlated to a flurry of action on Reddit’s notorious r/WallStreetBets forum, which crashed around 4 p.m. just as GameStop’s stock was soaring.
WallStreetBets, as you’ll likely recall, is best known for its role in triggering a massive short squeeze of GameStop stock in January — a gambit that resulted in massive loss of profit for at least one hedge fund, Melvin Capital, and also served as the inciting incident for a class action lawsuit currently being brought against brokerage app Robinhood after it responded to the spike by limiting the number of shares of so-called “meme stocks” users could purchase at one time.
While GameStop’s stock price has dropped precipitously in the weeks after RobinHood first limited trading, the sudden surge on Wednesday prompted some traders to rejoice.
“Wtf!!! How the hell does gme grow from 45$ to 110$ in a few hours…. so glad I bought a few more at 43$,” one r/WallStreetBets user wrote.
The sudden spike in valuation comes just one day after GameStop’s chief financial officer, Jim Bell, announced plans to resign from the company on March 26. According to multiple sources, Bell is not leaving on his own accord, but GameStop has argued that the former executive was leaving on acrimonious terms.
“Mr. Bell’s resignation was not because of any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices, including accounting principles and practices,” GameStop wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The surge also comes days after hearings on Capital Hill, in which popular Redditors — including Keith Gill, who also goes by the aliases “Roaring Kitty” and “DeepF***ingValue” — used their moment in the spotlight to double down on their investments and express confidence in GameStop.
On Wednesday, as GameStop’s stock value surged once again, Gill appeared to be celebrating.