GameStop: The Hottest Stock on Wall Street Is a Struggling Video Game Store

The market drama surrounding GameStop Corp. is spreading ever further beyond Wall Street, whipsawing stocks from Amsterdam to Sydney as traders race to bet on where the flood of retail money might head next. Heavily shorted companies have become the biggest targets, after an epic short squeeze in GameStop helped drive up the stock more than 400% this week. In Europe, short-seller favorites including Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield jumped 20% or more. E-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. and baby-care goods maker Pigeon Corp. climbed at least 6.9% in Tokyo on Thursday. The GameStop effect has also played out in different ways. Day traders in India have been piling into shares of the video-game retailer, which accounted for about 15% of volume on one popular platform allowing locals to bet on U.S. equities. An Australian company with “GME” in its ticker symbol jumped as much as 60% on Thursday, an apparent case of mistaken identity. Some chat rooms frequented by retail investors in China were abuzz with opportunities to pump up stock prices. Australia's GME Resources surges on heavy volume amid GameStop mania While GameStop’s extraordinary gain has captivated much of the financial world this week, few could have predicted the ripple effects emerging from Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum would be so far-reaching. “We were not expecting Indians would be on Reddit, reading about GameStop,” said Sitashwa Srivastava, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of trading platform Stockal. As in other countries, with more Indians staying indoors since the pandemic struck, many have flocked to stock markets at home and abroad, leading to an influx of money from ordinary savers. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake