GameStop's ungodly reign on the stock market after the market closed today. This has turned an already incredible stock into something that has been dubbed as a once in a life time opportunity for wealth.
Over the last week or so, Reddit s have been short-squeezing GameStop's stock. This has turned a company that doesn't have any profitability into one of the most valuable commodities on the market, currently towering over Disney and Apple. The idea is to essentially artificially inflate the value of the retailer's stock and run away with thousands, if not millions, of dollars. It's extremely high risk, unfathomably high reward.
The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, decided to help out the army of young internet Wall Street raiders by pumping it. Musk simply put out a tweet saying "GameStonks" while also linking to the /r/WallStreetBets subreddit where all the chaos stemmed from. The GameStop stock jumped to a 40% increase almost instantly. This took it from about $140 per share to $240 per share at its peak within 30 minutes. At the time of writing, the stock sits at a super healthy $229 per share but is fluctuating quite rapidly.
At the start of 2020, GameStop's shares were single-digits; By year's end, they were sitting at about $20 a share. This was nothing crazy, of course, with many people expecting GameStop to continue in its usual downward spiral. The short-squeeze is a result of seeing low valued stocks and turning them into profit, with the expectation it will inevitably crash and go back down to its normal price very quickly. GameStop has remained notably quiet on the whole ordeal but many expect that new regulations will be put in place as a result of this truly historic event. The system has essentially been cheated and those who weren't meant to get rich, got rich. Yesterday, someone made as much as $11 million. It's likely many others have become millionaires today as well.
Many are also keeping a close eye on AMC, a similar company that is in a strange state of limbo. After being saved from bankruptcy, the stock shot up from a little over $3 to nearly $7 a share. It may not seem like much but for those that bought a lot of shares while it was dirt cheap (and still is in relative ), it's wildly profitable at the moment.
It can't be stressed enough that this is NOT because of anything GameStop is doing in particular. This is not a result of the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 launches or a restock. That would result in a slight increase for GameStop but nothing anywhere close to where it is now. This could potentially hurt the company more in the long run but only time will tell. GameStop closed many stores in 2020 and it's likely that will continue as time goes on. As of right now, if you're not invested, grab some popcorn and watch the chaos unfold.
Source: Elon Musk
