GameStop Mania Hits a Wall of Tighter Trading Terms — Update morningstar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from morningstar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
3 Min Read
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wild gyrations in GameStop Corp shares have roiled Wall Street all week with plenty of chatter about every conceivable angle, but some traders have honed in on one question:
FILE PHOTO: A sign is seen outside a GameStop store in Niles, Illinois, U.S. May 23, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young
For a stock that has rocketed about 350% in five sessions, why is the most hotly traded options contract at the 50-cent level?
Put options that pay out if GameStop’s shares fall below 50 cents within a year were the most popular options tied to the stock on Thursday, with nearly 33,000 contracts changing hands. The video game retailer’s stock closed down 44% at $193.60.
Provided by Dow Jones
By Gunjan Banerji Investors are piling into bets that will profit if stocks continue their record run. Options activity is continuing at a breakneck pace in January, building on 2020 s record volumes. It is the latest sign of optimism cresting through markets as individual and institutional investors pick up bullish options to profit from stock gains and abandon bearish wagers. More than half a trillion dollars worth of options on individual stocks traded on Jan. 8 alone, the highest single-day level on record, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts in a Jan. 13 note. Among the most popular bets were those tied to Tesla Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. And bullish call-options trading surged to a high on Jan. 14, with about 32 million contracts changing hands, according to data provider Trade Alert.
5 Min Read
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of U.S. videogame retailer GameStop skyrocketed by 144% on Monday as short sellers scrambled to cover their positions in the stock, which then pared gains in a roller coaster session that featured nine trading halts for volatility.
FILE PHOTO: Outside a GameStop store people line up to purchase a Sony PS5 gaming console in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., November 12, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Options activity also surged in the stock, which had gained 245% so far this year as of Friday’s close. It closed Monday’s session up 18% with $16.7 billion worth of GameStop shares traded more than triple the company’s actual stock market value.