GameStop climbs nearly 70%, trading was briefly halted amid a short epic squeeze



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Wall Street’s most hated stock, GameStop, surged again on Friday as massive, short squeeze continued to fuel its explosive rally.

Video game stock climbed 69.4% to a high of $ 72.88 on Friday, pushing its gains to over 100% this week alone. Trading in the stock was briefly halted due to high volatility. The stock last traded around 35% to around $ 58.

GameStop has short sold more than 138% of its float stocks, the shortest name in the US stock market, according to FactSet citing the latest filings.

Share initially surged last week after the company announced that Chewy’s co-founder and former CEO Ryan Cohen would join its board. The news sparked massive short hedging where hedge funds and other players had to rush to hedge their bets against the stock.

Meanwhile, retail investors have also piled up, further fueling the rally. By early afternoon, over 92 million GameStop shares changed hands, quadrupling its 30-day average trading volume to 23.8 million.

Short seller Citron Research has been vocal about the action, saying buyers at these high levels are “the suckers of this poker game,” according to a tweet on Tuesday. Citron said GameStop would drop “quickly” back to $ 20 a share.

On Friday, Citron said he would no longer comment on GameStop due to attacks from the “angry mob” who own the stock.

The stock is up more than 250% in 2021 after rallying 209% last year.

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