GameStop Corp on Thursday plummeted, snapping a dizzying six-day rally and wiping out nearly US$11 billion in market value after brokers choked off demand for the stock by curbing trading on the apps used by the firm’s zealous fan base.
On Thursday, the stock plunged 44 percent after Robinhood Markets, Interactive Brokers Group Inc and others took steps to curtail activity in several high-flying stocks, including GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.
E*Trade Financial Corp is preventing customers from purchasing shares of both firms, a person familiar with the matter said.
Photo:Reuters
GameStop shares on Thursday jumped during extended trading, after Robinhood said that it would allow limited buying of certain securities yesterday.
“We’re beginning to open up trading for some of these securities in a responsible manner,” the firm said in a statement.
GameStop rose 46 percent in post-market trading, while AMC climbed 29 percent.
The video game retailer triggered 19 volatility halts on its way to shedding more than twice what it was worth on Monday.
Volume also fell, with about 55 million shares traded by Thursday afternoon, a far cry from its record of 197 million on Friday last week.
The trading curbs resulted in howls of outrage on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, which has been the launching point for many of this week’s blistering rallies.
Robinhood has been hit by lawsuits from customers.
It also prompted lawmakers to criticize restrictions imposed on retail investors.
US Senator Sherrod Brown, incoming chairman of the US Senate Banking Committee, said that he plans to hold a hearing on the “current state of the stock market.”
The clampdown by brokerages extended beyond GameStop to other popular stocks, such as BlackBerry Ltd, that have surged this week, burning short sellers and hedge funds.
The phenomenon attracted the attention of regulators on Wednesday, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission saying that it was monitoring the situation.
“The inability to trade depressed the volume, and high volume is what kept the stock trading at a high level,” Wedbush Securities Inc analyst Michael Pachter said. “I’m actually surprised the trading platforms think they can manage the market this way, and expect they will reverse their decision shortly.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last