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GameStop, at first a struggling company, then suddenly at the center of a stock market hype
Photo: Paul Weaver / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
When he realizes that his plan is working, the Reddit user who calls himself thicc_dads_club is home.
It's morning, he checks his smartphone, sees the opening price in his financial app and knows that he has to sell now.
Just last week he had invested part of his disposable income, his "fun" money, a few thousand dollars.
That's how he tells it.
“I've always loved casinos and gambling.
As long as it's not about the money I need to support my family, why worry so many? ”On January 27, he sold his shares for nine times as much.
For shares in a company that has been in the red for years, that big investors saw dying.
And that is suddenly worth $ 24 billion on the stock market - and is at the center of an unprecedented hype in which alleged amateur bankers are messing with Wall Street hedge funds that hold billions in their hands.
And win, at least for a while.
So far.
“I've always loved casinos and gambling.
Why worry so much? "
Reddit user thicc_dads_club
That company that's suddenly at the center of this little revolution is GameStop.
GameStop is a retail chain that sells electronic games and related equipment.
In shops in pedestrian zones and shopping centers.
At peak times like 2011, the company turned over $ 9.6 billion.
But those times are over.
Those who want to buy a computer game usually do so online, a trend that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Ten years after the high, sales have shrunk by almost a third, and the company made losses in the hundreds of millions.
In March 2020, the value of the stock was $ 3.50.
On January 27, 2021, it's $ 380.
An increase that financial analysts rub their eyes about, turns a few risk-takers into millionaires and drives established hedge funds crazy.
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