Meme stock king GameStop rallied more than 30% on Tuesday as some retail investors came back in full force despite an otherwise quiet market.
The video game retailer surged as much as 36.5% to $225 apiece in heavy trading volume. More than 7 million shares have changed hands, more than tripling its 30-day average, according to FactSet.
Other meme stocks were also popping.
Shares of AMC Entertainment jumped 21%. The movie theater chain was the most active stock on Fidelity’s trading platform as of 2:30 p.m. ET, according to the broker’s website.
Clover Health climbed 10%. Bed Bath & Beyond rose more than 4%. Robinhood, which has also earned a meme stock status, advanced 9% Tuesday on no apparent news.
MEME STOCKS RALLY
TICKER COMPANY CHANGE PRICE %CHANGE
GME GameStop Corp 45.419 210.309 27.55
AMC AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc 7.15 43.93 19.44
BBBY Bed Bath & Beyond Inc 1.31 28.69 4.78
CLOV Clover Health Investments Corp 0.78 8.90 9.61
Outside of the group favored by retail investors, the stock market seemed to be dull, with most investors eagerly awaiting a key Federal Reserve summit Thursday and Friday. The S&P 500 inched up 0.3% in afternoon trading.
Overall volume was light Tuesday with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF trading 24 million shares, about a third of its 30-day average, according to FactSet.
The Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium is expected to be market-moving, as central bankers could detail their plans for tapering monetary stimulus. The Fed has started discussions to pull back its minimum $120 billion a month bond-buying program by the end of this year.
The short interest in these meme stocks remained elevated. About 28% of AMC’s float shares are sold short, compared with an average of 5% short interest in a typical U.S. stock, according to S3 Partners. For GameStop, the short interest has declined drastically, to about 10% from more than 100% in January at the height of the meme stock mania.
