GameStop shares skyrocket with boost from Reddit message board
January 27, 2021
GameStop shares rocketed up by 92.7 percent on Tuesday due to a battle between short sellers and traders on a "wallstreetbets" Reddit message board who have been pushing for purchasing the stock. Tuesday's close put the video-game store chain's market value at more than $10 billion for the first time in its history. The stock got a boost from a tweet by Social Capital's Chamath Palihapitiya saying he had bought GameStop call options in a bet the shares would rise. GameStop shares surged by another 60 percent in pre-market trading on Wednesday after Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday tweeted "Gamestonk," a reference to GameStop shares. Earlier in the day, Etsy shares briefly jumped by 8 percent after Musk tweeted about a hand-knitted wool hat he bought for his dog on the craft site.