GameStop Corp. extended its decline Monday after its worst week on record as the video-game retailer’s recent roller-coaster ride continues.
The stock fell as much 4.7% to $60.77 at 10:40 a.m. in New York trading, after whipsawing between gains and losses earlier. It slumped 80% last week, a drop that followed three weeks of dizzying gains.
Robinhood Markets Inc.’s move late last week to end buying limits on Gamestop has had limited impact on the stock, which has lost most of its gains since touching an intraday high at $483 on Jan. 27. Inflated levels of short interest that triggered a squeeze on the shares have declined after a number of hedge funds closed positions and incurred huge losses.
Bloomberg“Extremely elevated short interest is a pre-condition for a major short squeeze to occur,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists wrote in a note dated Feb. 5, saying that GameStop — on which short interest had exceeded 100% of the float of the company — has been a “highly unusual” situation.
Volumes in GameStop options remained high, with open interest in puts and calls rising further last week as the stock price tumbled. While calls open interest has climbed, volumes on the bearish put contracts have jumped to almost five times the amount.
Bloomberg“While the GME game may have come to an end — at least for now — its after-effects will linger,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, wrote in a note. “New regulations are likely to arise, and we can only hope that they are sensible.”
