What happened
Shares of GameStop (GME 1.22%) gained 28% last month, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, as the meme queen again caught fire with investors on Reddit's WallStreetBets board and other online forums. Several of the popular meme stocks from January rallied toward the end of the month.
As the chart below shows, the video game retail stock lagged for most of May but then surged over the last few sessions.
So what
GameStop shares started rallying on May 25 as traders once again tried to execute a short squeeze, and the stock gained on high volume for much of the rest of the week. Nearly 30% of GameStop shares were sold short as of mid-May, which is a significant amount but considerably less than when that percentage was above 100% in January -- when the stock skyrocketed by more than 500% in just a few days.
Source: Getty Images.
At times, GameStop investors have argued that the company can reinvent itself with e-commerce. They've seen a potential savior in Ryan Cohen, the Chewy co-founder, who now sits on the board, but the bull case for the stock still seems thin, especially at its current valuation.
GameStop did stay that it was hiring a team to build a nonfungible token (NFT) platform, which seemed to feed the rally, as that would be one way for the company to stretch its brand beyond brick-and-mortar retail.
Now what
The meme stock rally continued into June with AMC Entertainment stock nearly doubling in a single day, lifting peers like GameStop. Through the first three days of the month, GameStop gained another16%.
Looking at fundamentals, there are plenty of reasons to sell GameStop at the current price; this is essentially a no-growth, money-losing company that's operating in a declining industry -- selling video game cartridges. However, GameStop isn't trading based on those rules, as meme stocks move according to the machinations of masses of retail investors without regard to fundamentals.
It's impossible to know where the stock will go from here, but one thing's certain: The stock will remain extraordinarily volatile.
