GameStop's dizzying share price rise means it's game over for the short-sellers | Nils Pratley

The retailer has gone from $19 to $330 thanks in part to amateurs taking on the hedge funds

If you find trading bitcoin insufficiently hair-raising, try GameStop. It is the Texas-based video games retailer that will be hard to out-do as the stock market story of 2021. The share price was $19 at the start of this month but reached $330 in mid-afternoon on Wednesday in New York. There have been a few downwards lurches along the way, but the overall direction has been unsustainably upwards.

It must be unsustainable because nothing of note has happened to improve GameStop's commercial prospects so radically. Exciting PlayStation and Xbox releases may lie around the corner, but the company is still a bricks-and-mortar retailer struggling in an online age. Instead, punting on GameStop has become a video game in itself.