The WallStreetBets meme stonking continues well past GameStop. This time the recipient is Blockbuster Video. It’s a bankrupt company but that doesn’t really seem to matter.
It’s not just GameStop
If you’re playing catch up, subreddit WallStreetBets has sent GameStop stock soaring exponentially over the last week. This has been extremely bad news for hedge funds that were banking on shorting the stock. If you want more of an explainer on what happened, we have one here.
But it’s not just GameStop stock that has been given the meme stock treatment — although it has been the most profitable.
Other heavily shorted stock have also been impacted, seeing their value skyrocket. This includes companies like Blackberry, Nokia and Bed Bath & Beyond.
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Now Blockbuster is a thing
But perhaps the most surprising so far is Blockbuster Video. Well, kind of.
The video rental giant went bankrupt back in 2010 thanks to the likes of Netflix taking over physical rental stores. But it is still represented as BB Liquidating Inc. It’s the epitome of a penny stock, sitting at $US0.0033 a week ago.
Since then it has surged over 700 per cent and at the time of writing closed at $US0.11.
Sure, that’s a bit different to the $US347.51 that GameStop closed at on Wednesday (U.S. time) but it does show the power of meme stocks, and WallStreetBets right now.
If you can get a bankrupt dinosaur to rocket, it’s unsurprising that old school stock market players are nervous.
As a result of the surge there has been calls for market regulators for the New York Stock Exchange to suspend trading on GameStop shares.
“These small and unsophisticated investors are probably going to get hurt by this,” William Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said to Barrons.