GameStop shares tried to bounce back Wednesday from a massive losing streak that’s taken some steam out of the retailer’s Reddit-fueled rally.
The video-game chain’s stock price climbed about 2.8 percent to $92.54 as of 7:17 a.m. in choppy premarket trading that saw it oscillate between gains and losses.
The shares lost more than 70 percent of their value Monday and Tuesday, pulling the rug out from under an unprecedented surge in GameStop and other “meme stocks” fueled by a retail trader uprising on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum.
Many investors on the message board remained steadfast in their devotion to GameStop — and to beating hedge funds that bet against the stock — despite some saying they’ve racked up hefty losses.
“Everyone left at this point are true soldiers, with MASSIVE diamond hands,” a user named astroxlogical wrote on WallStreetBets late Tuesday, using a slang term for dedication to a financial bet. “I’m not worried about the losses these past couple days, because I know what’s going to come if we stay strong.”
Others, however, were more skeptical.
“The year is 2022. [GameStop] prices are approaching $2. The new [WallStreetBets] subs still insist tomorrow the spike is coming,” user ROYBUSCLEMSON wrote early Wednesday.
Reddit’s foul-mouthed band of day traders has won support from high-profile figures such as billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, infamous stockbroker Jordan Belfort and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
But they’ve also drawn the attention of the feds. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to discuss the wild market activity at a meeting this week with the heads of the nation’s top financial regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
GameStop’s mixed trading came as the Robinhood investment app continued to ease restrictions that it imposed on Reddit’s favorite stocks last week amid massive price swings.
GameStop and cinema chain AMC Entertainment were the only stocks that remained subject to limits on the number of shares and options contracts that Robinhood users could buy Wednesday morning.
AMC was recently up 1.8 percent at $7.96 in premarket trading after plunging 41 percent on Tuesday. Other stocks popular among retail traders were mixed in early trading — former smartphone maker BlackBerry fell roughly 1.4 percent while telecom giant Nokia rose about 2.6 percent.
With Post wires
