In GameStop saga unfolding on Wall Street, 2 Goliaths fall

By Michelle Chapman
and Stan Choe
AP Business Writers

In the David and Goliath saga surrounding the struggling retail chain GameStop, Goliath has fallen.

Two Goliaths, actually.

A pair of professional investment firms that placed big bets that money-losing video game retailer GameStop’s stock will crash have largely abandoned their positions. The victors: an army of smaller investors who have been rallying on Reddit  and elsewhere online to support GameStop’s stock and beat back the professionals.

One of the two major investors that surrendered, Citron Research, acknowledged Wednesday in a YouTube video that it unwound the majority of its bet that GameStop stock would fall. Andrew Left, who runs Citron, said it took “a loss, 100%” to do so, but that does not change his view that GameStop is a loser.

“We move on. Nothing has changed with GameStop except the stock price,” Left said. He did acknowledge that Citron is taking a fresh look at how it bets against companies, in light of the GameStop campaign.

Melvin Capital is also exiting GameStop, with manager Gabe Plotkin telling CNBC that the hedge fund was taking a significant loss. He denied rumors that the hedge fund will fail.

The size of the losses taken by Citron and Melvin are unknown.

The Wall Street frenzy over GameStop began when an army of smaller-pocketed investors on Reddit  started throwing dollars and buy orders at the stock — in direct opposition to a group of wealthy investors who were counting on the stock price to plunge.

There is no overriding reason why GameStop has attracted those smaller investors, but there is a distinct component of revenge against Wall Street in communications online.

Over the past three months, shares of GameStop Corp., which has been buffeted by a shift in gaming technology, have spiked well over 1000%. Shares are up another 100% at the opening bell Wednesday.

That has created titanic losses for major Wall Street players who have “shorted” the stock, which means they borrowed shares and sold them, hoping to buy them back at a cheaper price and pocket the difference. As of Tuesday, the losses had already topped $5 billion in 2021, according to S3 Partners.

And the phenomenon does not appear to by fading.

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the theater chain that has been ravaged by the pandemic, posted a quarterly loss this month exceeding $900 million.

It appears, however, that AMC has become the next battleground in the fight between smaller, retail investors, and Wall Street.

Shares of AMC spiked 260% when trading began Wednesday and #SaveAMC is rending on Twitter.