GameStop share price sees dramatic rise

GameStop stock has risen to a new record high share price. It hit $76.76 per share at midday on January 22, 2021, moving up from an opening of $42.59. That’s an almost 80 percent single-day surge. The company’s previous record high share price was $63.30 in 2007.

The company’s stock has been on the rise for the past week now. It started at around $20 per share on January 12, doubling in just two days. It’s still on the rise at the time of writing.

Bloomberg reported that the surge made GameStop the most-actively traded stock in the US for a brief period. This caused trading to be stopped at multiple points throughout the day due to volatility, though it has now resumed.

A lot of the traction around GameStop’s stock has been driven by a campaign that’s still ongoing among a few YouTube and TikTok investment personalities. This campaign was started on the Subreddit WallStreetBets. Several users noticed that GameStop had an excess of short shares (71.2 million shares when compared to the 69.75 the company had left in December). Those users then took advantage and began buying up the stock.

Chewy Co-Founder, Ryan Cohen, has recently been installed as a member of GameStop’s board, which is also thought to have boosted this share price sales spree. In addition to Cohen, Alan Attal, former Chewy CMO, and Jim Grube, former Vasca CFO, have also joined the board. This has given the public a lot more confidence in the company moving forward.

One seller, Citroen Research, attempted to discourage people from buying the shares on social media. They published a video explaining why the share price would soon fall back to $20 again, but it was met with a lot of criticism, and the advice almost certainly fell on mostly deaf ears.

GameStop has had a tough time the last two years. However, the company is slowly starting to recover as more stores are closed and others are consolidated to offer consumers what they need, rather than what it is perceived that they want. While some of those buying the stock may have no interest in the company, or know anything about them, it will be interesting to see if it provides a boost to the board’s confidence in moving forward with larger plans in 2021.