GameStop shares were in volatile trading Monday, following the multi-session rally of the beloved meme shares last week that had made massive gains.
Shares in the struggling video game retailer had skyrocketed during early trading and rose about 7 percent after the opening bubble, but then turned gains back to drop nearly 16 percent to $ 223 around 11:20 a.m.
The sudden drop reportedly caused trading on GameStop to shut down due to volatility before the stock rebounded in the early afternoon. It was down about 5.5 percent recently to $ 250.01 as of 1:34 PM
The whipsawed session came after a week in which GameStop’s stock price rose 92 percent, hitting highs not seen since the late January market frenzy that shook Wall Street.
Monday’s wild moves haven’t confused many budding traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, making the Texas-based chain synonymous with the retail investment revolution.
Some users said they planned to buy GameStop stock with the $ 1,400 incentive payments – or “stimmy” checks – that the FBI began depositing into Americans’ bank accounts over the weekend.
“Jokes about the hegies, this volatility makes me feel alive,” a Redditor called __Cofi__ wrote Monday, misspelling a slang term for hedge fund investors. “Buy 5 more shares. And my stimmy hasn’t even arrived yet! “
The reports echoed a recent Deutsche Bank survey, which reportedly found that about half of retailers between the ages of 25 and 34 planned to put 50 percent of their stimulus money into stocks.
GameStop’s stock price also moved like a rollercoaster last week, but eventually posted strong gains after the company announced it had engaged Chewy.com founder Ryan Cohen to lead its shift into ecommerce.
Bulls believe Cohen, who joined GameStop’s board in January, will help transform it from a downcast brick-and-mortar retailer into a successful digital gaming company.
Social media traders have been trying to get hints about Cohen’s role in the company from his cryptic Twitter posts. The most recent, posted Thursday night, contained a GIF of Jeff Daniels’ character from the 1994 movie “Dumb and Dumber”, sitting on a toilet with his pants around his knees and feet in the air.