Retail Bagholders Prop Up GameStop, Stock Soars Almost 70%
Posted on 01/22/2021
In an epic short squeeze, shares of GameStop (ticker: GME), a video game retail stock, skyrocketed as much as 69.4% to a high of $72.88 on Friday. GameStop shares had gains to over 100% this week alone. According to FactSet data, GameStop has more than 138% of its float shares sold short. It is the single most shorted name in the U.S. stock market. The stock is up more than 250% in 2021 after a 209% rally last year.
GameStop announced earlier that Chewy co-founder and former CEO Ryan Cohen is joining its board.
Retail investors piled in, driving GameStop stock higher. Wallstreetbets (https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/), a popular Reddit forum for risky stock investing, had numerous posts supporting GameStop stock. Many of these reddit posters use the Robinhood trading app.
Short-seller Citron Research has been a vocal critic of the stock. Citron Research suspended a livestream that was aimed at explaining its short position on GameStop on Thursday. “Too many people hacking Citron twitter, will record and post later today,” the Citron Research account tweeted on Thursday. “$GME going to $20 buy at your own risk.”
Citron Research published a note on January 22, 2021.
