Shares of GameStop surged as much as 76 percent in early trading on Thursday, in a second day of volatile trading for the video game retailer that was at the center of a retail trading frenzy last month.
On Wednesday, GameStop’s shares doubled to $91.71 and the volume of trading was more than 10 times the level of the previous day. After spiking early in the day Thursday, the shares were up about 30 percent.
GameStop and a handful of other stocks grabbed Wall Street’s attention in January as they surged, making millionaires (on paper at least) out of small investors who had bet on the gains and leading to big losses at some notable hedge funds that had bet against the stocks. The frenzy of trading prompted several trading platforms, most notably the trading app Robinhood, to limit their customers ability to buy the shares, which in turn led to an outcry among small investors.
But that January rally of GameStop shares ended just as quickly as it had begun, and many investors were left with substantial losses after they had been caught up in the buying hype.
Some of the popular posts on Reddit’s Wallstreetbets forum, where users have been hyping up certain stocks in memes, read “ROUND 2!†and “THE COMEBACK!!!!!†Other meme stocks also rose: AMC shares gained as much as 18 percent and BlackBerry, Nokia and Koss were also higher.
Earlier this week, GameStop announced its chief financial officer would leave the company next month. The company is under pressure from a large shareholder to shift from a brick-and-mortar business to a digital and e-commerce firm.
Other market news
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The S&P 500 was 0.4 percent lower in early trading, a dip led by technology stocks.
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Bond yields continued to jump. The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 1.43 percent. This month, the yield has climbed 37 basis points.
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Analysts at Bank of America raised their forecast for bond yields, expecting the 10-year yield to be at 1.75 percent at the end of the year because of stronger economic growth. Last month, they forecast 1.5 percent for year-end.
