Call it meme stock revenge.
After being beaten the first three days of the week, GameStop Corp. GME,
skyrocketed Thursday, aided by retail traders who remain emotionally committed to the video game retailer, even after stocks fell 24 hours earlier.
Meanwhile, the shares of the AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC film chain,
another popular action among retail merchants on social media platforms like Reddit and Discord, also appeared in the session.
AMC closed Thursday’s trading up 21%, while GameStop rose nearly 53%, more than making up for Wednesday’s 40.5% loss, which represented the worst day in seven weeks after its results. disappointing quarterly reports reported after Tuesday’s normal trading hours closed.
“WE ARE ALL WITNESSES” that a Reddit r / WallStreetBets board member posted after the bell on Thursday, summing up the feeling of GameStop bulls on the website that had encouraged each other to “buy the dip” presented in the earnings report mediocre company, and stick with the hedge funds that many Reddit and Discord users still perceive as existential threats to unrestricted gains.
The campaign to buy GameStop appears to have worked. Fidelity data shows that the stock was the most traded by retail customers on Thursday, with a buy-to-sell ratio of nearly 3 to 1.
GameStop fans gained an extra boost in the final hour of negotiations when Ryan Cohen, founder of Chewy and GameStop board member, fired an enigmatic tweet that his followers were optimistically interpreting.
Cohen’s message – the first in more than two weeks – was a clip of “Ted”, Seth MacFarlane’s cheeky live-action comedy about the childhood bond between a marijuana-smoking teddy bear and his human friend John, played by Mark Wahlberg.
“Louder and louder!” replied one of Cohen’s followers on Twitter.
AMC, which was the fifth most popular stock on Thursday, according to Fidelity, with buyers outnumbering sellers, also benefited from social media campaigns aimed at taking down hedge funds that were sold in stocks.
Message boards have been spreading unverified rumors that large investment funds and market makers were betting heavily that AMC’s shares would eventually devalue.
Little has been said, however, about the fact that Walt Disney Co. DIS,
announced on Tuesday that it would premiere two of its box office hits “Black Widow” and “Cruella” simultaneously in theaters and streaming on Disney +, which in theory would deliver a bona fide hit to distressed movie chains, including AMC , at least in the short term.
These conspiracy theories and the potential loss of business by major filmmakers were set aside on Thursday.
“I had a big loss yesterday. I did everything back today ”, posted a Redditor. “I prefer that than 2 boring days. I love this shit. “
In the end, the typical strategy of buying first and asking questions after Reddit returned to bear fruit – at least in the short term.
For the week, however, GameStop’s shares are looking at a 8.3% drop in the week to date and AMC Entertainment’s shares have fallen more than 21%.