AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and some other Redditor favorites extended January’s spectacular advance on Monday, while GameStop Corp’s rally paused, as brokerages removed trading restrictions from all but the most volatile stocks.
AMC rose 18% to $15.51, while GameStop erased earlier gains and was 7.7% lower at $300 as of 7:10 a.m. in New York. The latter surged 1,625% last month, propelled by day traders using Reddit forums to take on the Wall Street establishment and inflict multibillion-dollar losses on hedge funds with large short positions.
Robinhood Markets Inc. is continuing to impose trading curbs on GameStop, movie-theater chain AMC and six other stocks, but on Sunday removed restrictions on 42 others. Clients can buy only 1 share in GameStop, and as many as 10 in AMC. The popular trading app put buying limits in place last week after its clearinghouse deposit requirements for equities increased. Other brokerages including Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade also eased restrictions.
Among other stocks recently favored by the Reddit community, Blackberry Ltd. rose 5.3%, cannabis firm Sundial Growers Inc. gained 10% and headphones and loudspeakers retailer Koss climbed 6.3%.
The attention of the retail speculators who fueled the breathtaking gains in the most heavily shorted stocks looked to be shifting over the weekend to commodities such as silver, which broke above $30 an ounce in a move that like GameStop and AMC can be traced back to Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum.
“So far, it is not exactly the GameStop anomaly, but it is a hint that the retail traders who just discovered the strength of their unity are out there, looking for new targets — and apparently bigger ones,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said in written comments.
European-listed silver miners surged, with Fresnillo Plc rising as much as 21% in its biggest intraday gain since 2008, and Hochschild Mining Plc climbing 18%. U.S.-listed peers also skyrocketed in premarket trading, with First Majestic Silver Corp. and McEwen Mining Inc. both rising 28%.
