GameStop trading halted 10 minutes after Wall St opens as stock gears up for volatile day
Trading of GameStop stock was halted within the first 10 minutes of Wall Street’s opening bell, after the stock rocketed 104 per cent yesterday and a further 83 per cent in after-hours trading.
The share price of American videogame retailer GameStop jumped 77 per cent on Wall Street’s open today, after amateur traders again took to Reddit to hype the stock.
Trading of the stock has since resumed, but may again be halted for periods of time as the day goes on.
GameStop shares hit $160 at the open before being halted after several minutes of trading and fell to around $129 before the second halt.
The stock resumed trading around 10 a.m. Eastern and hovered around $143 in afternoon trade, up almost 60%.
The stock price started climbing yesterday evening, and analysts struggled to make sense of what was going on, with some Twitter users pointed out a cryptic tweet of an ice-cream cone photo from activist investor Ryan Cohen – a major shareholder in GameStop and a board member.
It is unclear what, if anything, the ice cream tweet has to do with the GameStop rally.
On Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets, amateur traders continue to hype the stock. One wrote: “If we all hold together and block out the fake noise we’re going to blow the top off this motherf*****.”
Last month GameStop was at the heart of an amateur trading frenzy on Wall Street that led to an unprecedented short squeeze.
Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets hyped the stock, encouraging a short squeeze on hedge funds that had shorted the video game retailer. The move was a success, sending Gamestop shares to more than $400, up from around £16 at the start of the year.
Their actions saw the hedge funds scrambling for emergency bailouts, leading low-cost trading platform Robinhood to pull the plug on future trades of the stock.