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Déjà vu? GameStop Shares Shoot Up Again, Gaining 100% in Value

The January GameStop swirl caused one of the biggest disruptions on Wall Street since the markets meltdown presaging the 2008/09 financial crisis.
Sputnik

GameStop's shares climbed nearly 104 percent on Wednesday and more than 60 percent in pre-market trading on Thursday.

The price surge coincided with Reddit's "r/WallStreetBets" board – where individual traders plotted to bring down the hedge funds which shorted the company's stock last month – crashing on Wednesday.

In January, the trading frenzy, which saw amateur investors buying and holding GameStop's shares, caused its stock to jump around 1,600 percent in a matter of days. As a result, a total of around $70 billion was lost by the short-selling Wall Street hedge funds.

The chain of events even led to a restriction on buying GameStop stocks by the Robinhood trading app, which made the company’s shares easily accessible – this enraged its users and its rating plummeted. Robinhood's co-founder Vladimir Tenev said that it was forced to act due to pressure from the National Securities Clearing Corporation, which settles stock trades between brokers.

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