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A crazy five trading days for GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock ended on Friday with the videogame retailer’s shares settling 27.3% higher for the week.
The epic short squeeze GME witnessed over Monday and Tuesday brought memories of 2021 back into the spotlight. The action was sparked by none other than retail investor Keith Gill, known online as Roaring Kitty, who had been one of the instrumental players in the saga three years ago.
Before jumping into a timeline of events that took place this week surrounding GME, here are some quick stats, courtesy data from S3 Partners:
- Short interest in GameStop (GME) is $1.79B on 64.66M shares shorted, comprising 24.10% of total float.
- Shorts are up $460M on Friday’s stock price move.
- Shorts are down $159M in YTD mark-to-market losses, or -18%.
- Shorts are down $551M in May month-to-date losses, or -41%.
- Shorts are down $145M in week mark-to-market losses, or -6.7%.
Now for the timeline:
- May 12, 2024: Roaring Kitty, aka Keith Gill, returns to X (formerly Twitter) by posting for the first time in nearly three years. It was a well known meme of a gamer leaning forward with a look of concentration on his face. The post was widely interpreted as Gill taking notice of the recent options activity in GameStop (GME), and sparked major buying ahead of the start of the regular trading week. Gill continues to be very active over the entire week, posting scores of memes and video clips from films, some mentioning GME by name.
- May 13: GameStop (GME) stock opens 50.9% higher from its close on May 10. It eventually ends with a whopping 74.4% advance at $30.45 per share. Short sellers betting against GME lose more than $1B in paper losses, according to data from S3 Partners.
- May 14: Shares of GameStop (GME) rise as much as 112.9% during regular hours to $64.83, their highest level since early June 2021. They eventually settle at $48.75, marking a climb of 60.1% and a staggering 179.2% over Monday and Tuesday. Short sellers lose $1.36B in paper losses, as per S3 Partners.
- May 14: David Boole, managing director at Baycrest Partners, tells CNBC that the groundwork for GameStop’s (GME) gains had already been laid with options activity well before Roaring Kitty’s return to social media.
- May 15: GameStop (GME) stock falls 18.9% to end at $39.55. Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at eToro, says the meme stock rally is “fundamentally different this time” from 2021. “The pandemic lockdown is over. Excess consumer savings are largely long-spent. Investor sentiment measures are lower. Short positions in these stocks are much smaller (though not small). Interest rates are much higher,” Laidler says. Also see: Many retail investors may be reluctant to jump into Meme Mania 2.0 – IBKR economist.
- May 16: Shares of GameStop (GME) slump 30% to close at $27.67. The stock continues to see massive volume, something that draws the attention of Urvin Finance top boss Dave Lauer. “I think this volume analysis seriously calls into question the prevailing narrative that this price movement is primarily a result of @TheRoaringKitty meme tweets,” Lauer says on X, suggesting that a bigger player or players than just meme basement traders were involved.
- May 17: GameStop (GME) reports preliminary Q1 results, says it expects revenue of $872M to $892M, compared to an estimate of $995.3M based on two analysts compiled by Seeking Alpha.
- May 17: The company also files for a mixed shelf, size not disclosed, under which it may offer and sell from time to time class A common stock, preferred stock, depositary shares, warrants, stock purchase contracts, units, and subscription rights. In a separate regulatory filing, GameStop (GME) says it has entered into an open market sales agreement with Jefferies to offer and sell up to 45M shares.
- May 17: GameStop (GME) stock slips 19.7% to end the week at $22.22. After its huge jump over Monday and Tuesday, shares fall 54.4% over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Seeking Alpha editor Carla Mozee contributed to this story
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