GameStop’s decline continues, down 25% in premarket buying and selling

A person walks past a GameStop in the Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, the United States, on Jan. 29, 2021.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

GameStop’s shares continued to lose ground on the Tuesday before the bell, with shares of the volatile retail favorite dropping more than 25% in premarket trading.

The post-close drop follows a more than 30% drop during the regular market session and brings the stock price below $ 200 per share, which would wipe out the rest of the nearly 68% gain for the stock on Friday.

GameStop shares have been trading wildly for the past few weeks after retailers on Reddit released a brief squeeze on the stock. This is a phenomenon where traders who have bet against the stock are forced to buy it in order to limit their losses, which pushed the price up even further.

Retail activity has contributed to extreme volatility and high trading volume in GameStop and other stocks. However, according to FactSet, Monday’s trading volume was the lowest in the video game stock since January 20.

AMC Entertainment, another retail favorite, also fell to the bell. Cinema stocks fell more than 14% after gaining less than 1% during Monday’s market hours.

GameStop’s struggles even came when Robinhood, a free trade broker, lifted restrictions on highly volatile names. The brokerage allowed users to buy up to 20 GameStop shares as of Monday afternoon, from just one share at the start of the day and four shares around noon ET.

The volatile moves and broker restrictions have drawn the attention of politicians and regulators in Washington. The Chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, announced on Monday that a hearing would be held on February 18 about the recent GameStop deal.