GameStop Corp. pushed to a market cap of $ 10 billion on Friday, which would be the first time it reached that level in more than a month, even as the video game retailer’s stock earnings dropped a bit from the week before.
GameStop GME,
Shares traded as much as 14% and even 4% lower on Friday, and were up 5% last to $ 139.50. The stock price threshold for a market cap of $ 10 billion is $ 143.37, based on just under 69.8 million shares outstanding. The last time the stock closed above that price was Feb. 1, following its all-time high of $ 347.51 on Jan. 27 and a day-long all-time high of $ 483.00 on Jan. 28, according to data from FactSet .
The stock was set for a weekly gain of around 35%, which would be lower than the previous week, but would still be the eighth best weekly gain in the stock’s history – with 400% the best in late January. The top four weekly gains for the stock occurred between a six-week period in 2021, when investors were massively targeting the stock.
Last week was the second-best week on record for the stock, and an analyst charted a strong correlation between the volume of chatter on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum and GameStop’s stock price. Since January, social media organized buy-and-hold investors have clashed with Wall Street companies betting against the stock, making GameStop one of the most short-short stocks out there.
GameStop’s fourth quarter results, including Christmas sales, are expected at the end of March, after a preview in early January showing that ecommerce sales are up more than 300%, but total sales are down during the holiday season.
With a few hours remaining on the trading day, the volume exceeded 24 million shares, compared to a 10-day average daily volume of 50.3 million and a 52-week average daily volume of 14.4 million.
GameStop’s shares are up nearly 650% this year alone, and nearly 3,500% in the last 12 months. The S&P 500 index SPX,
has increased by 0.3% in 2021 and by 24.6% in the past year.