New York (AFP) - GameStop continued its wild Wall Street ride on Monday with a dizzying climb seemingly powered by online chatter about the struggling video game retailer with a devoted fan base.
GameStop shares were up 70 percent at one point in morning trades, after ending last week with a surge in price and rocketing some 800 percent in the past three months.
Shares that were trading at $2.80 in April of last year topped $100 during a high-volume morning session on the New York Stock Exchange, despite analysts warning that GameStop's retail model is out of touch with market trends.
Investors betting against GameStop by borrowing shares and selling them "short" in the hope of buying them back cheap, pocketing the difference, seemed to be up against day traders and users of social media sites such as Reddit boosting the company in online posts.
"I'm not selling this until at least $1000+," read one post at the sub-reddit WallStreetBets.
"Buckle the .... up."
A hashtag based on the GameStop trading symbol, #GME, at Twitter featured posts boasting about the soaring share price ,and one person touted they were going to make him rich in a day.
A "GME to the Moon" hooded sweatshirt for sale at handmade e-commerce website Etsy was emblazoned with an image of a beloved character from video game "Fallout" riding a rocket skyward.
An activist short-seller said Friday he was walking away from the stock in the retailer due to what he called an "angry mob" that has terrorized him and his family.
Andrew Left of Citron Research put out word of the decision on Twitter a day after he posted a video at YouTube detailing reasons he was certain the retailer was overpriced in the market.
Citron critics were quick to point out that it was wrong years back when it took a short-seller position regarding electric car star Tesla, which has been a winner for long-term investors.
Citron Research did a complete U-turn in 2018, advising buying and holding Tesla shares.
