Shares of GameStop Corp. GME dropped 10.6% in active morning trading Thursday, to put a pause on the “meme”-like rally of the past two sessions. Trading volume was about 9.0 million share, already more than the full-day average over the past 30 days of about 5.4 million shares. The consumer electronic and videogame retailer’s stock, one of the original “meme” stocks of early 2021, had rocketed 36.4% over the previous two sessions, as options investors piled into bullish bets ahead of third-quarter results due out next week. That two-day gain, which was the biggest such gain in eight months, followed the stock’s closing on Monday at the lowest price since February 2021. Meanwhile, movie theater operator AMC Entertainment Inc.’s stock AMC, which was also an original “meme” stock, fell 5.3% in morning trading Thursday, putting it within range of its record closing low of $6.65 hit on Nov. 21. The latest exchange data showed that short interest in GameStop, or bearish bets on the stock, represented 22.8% of the public float, or shares available for public trading. That compares with AMC’s stock, in which short interest was 11.5% of the float. The stocks’ selloff Thursday come as the S&P 500 SPX inched 0.1% lower.
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