The surge in "meme stock" at GameStop was caused by one man.
The images are from SOPA.
A report said that the games retailer is close to creating a marketplace for non-fungible token, or NFTs, and that it is close to signing partnerships with cryptocurrencies.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the company has hired more than 20 people to help turn around its business.
In premarket trading on Friday, GME surged 19.82%, having rocketed as much as 29% in after-hours trading.
The WallStreetBets forum was a hive of activity after the move. In January of 2021, traders there sent shares in GameStop, one of the original "meme stocks", soaring, whacking hedge funds that had been betting against the company.
The headline of one forum post on Friday was "GME is back on the menu boyz."
One user wrote that he was not missing this January because he wasn't here last January. "Roll the dice folks," said another.
The retail investing of the year was dominated by two strands: meme stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Last year, the market for non-fungible token soared to a value of over 40 billion dollars. Beeple's One NFT sold for a record $69 million in March.
AMC, a meme-stock name, has investigated a number of cryptocurrencies in an attempt to appeal to the retail traders who became enamored with their companies last year.
Wall Street was trounced by amateur traders, apes, and meme lords for 2 years. The big shots are going to hit back.
The WSJ reported that a video game retailer is building an online marketplace for buying and selling video game focused NFTs. The company is close to reaching deals with two digital-asset partners to invest in games.
Many retail and institutional investors see potential in GameStop, given the popularity of gaming, despite the fact that irony and nostalgia lay behind much of the meme-stock mania of 2021.
Ryan Cohen, an activist investor, took over as chairman last year and is trying to turn the company into a more modern, tech-savvy firm.
The company reported a loss of $105 million in the third quarter. Its stock has fallen over the last six months.
Retail investors may not be deterred by the company's poor financial performance. One WallStreetBets user said that he was getting the good kind of flashbacks from a year ago.
A request for comment was not responded to by GameStop.
Business Insider has an original article.
