Ryan Cohen is doing exactly what his Apes thought he was doing, so GameStop stock GME, +1.28% is exploding.
After closing up about 1.3% on Thursday, GameStop shares soared more than 30% in after-hours action on heavy volumes after a Wall Street Journal report that the company is in the midst of launching an NFT marketplace and planting a flag in the new frontiers of cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0.
The news struck a chord on social media, where GameStop “Apes” have been expecting news of an NFT marketplace and a deeper dive into crypto for months, seeing the shift as a key tenet of company chairman Cohen’s mysterious master plan for a digital turnaround.
It’s been more than a year since Cohen, as an activist investor, took a large stake in the heavily-shorted videogame retailer and sparked manic retail interest in the stock, leading to the short squeeze of January 2021.
Since then, Cohen has issued stock at highs to pay down debt, expanded e-commerce logistics and reshuffled the C-Suite with an infusion of Amazon executives. But the most bullish of GME bulls were still waiting for a big swing, and many have been openly speculating for months that crypto and NFTs were the bleeding edge that Cohen would seize upon.
“But.. MAYBE I AM F@#&ING STUPID… isn’t this…. old news?” asked Reddit user plyske on subreddit r/Superstonk, in response to the WSJ report.
On Twitter, the energy was very similar.
NFTs remain somewhat blurry to many, but for retail investors who came to the markets in the age of decentralized finance, Cohen’s reported interest in hiring and entering into partnerships is just what the doctor ordered for a stock price that feasts on buzz.
If one of those partnerships is with the token Loopring, investors can expect GameStop to surge even higher as Apes feel once again like they were very right all along.
Happy(?) #AMCDay
On a day that was meant to celebrate one meme stock, it was its zeitgeist twin that grabbed the gains and then the headlines on Thursday.
Shares in AMC Entertainment AMC, -1.27% fell 1.2% despite the hashtag #AMCDay trending throughout social media throughout the day, with the company’s band of Ape investors pumping each other up and egging each other on to get the movie-theater chain’s stock moving upward after a six-month drop of more than 50%.
The mood around AMC was bright Thursday morning:
But a drop of more than 5% close to the opening bell soured affairs.
“This might actually be the dip before the rip,” blared one post on subreddit r/AMCStock.
“It’s the dip before the dip,” responded user Hot-Law-5355.
It turned out both sentiments were right, as AMC turned briefly green midday but failed to hold on to that momentum despite stronger-than-average volume trading activity and a Fidelity buy-to-sell ratio of roughly 5 to 2. Ortex also reported that short interest on the stock shrunk throughout the trading day.
But, hey, there’s always the next holiday.
Remember Bed, Bath & Beyond?
Cuz BBBY, +7.97% closed up almost 8% despite a huge whiff on earnings thanks to loyal retail traders.
That’s some latent Big Meme Energy.
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