Shares in GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. suddenly spiked late in Wednesday’s trading session, as Reddit — the online message board where investors gathered to discuss their interest in those stocks previously — suffered from outages.
GameStop GME, +103.94% stock more than doubled late in Wednesday’s session, and trading in the stock was paused twice in the last half-hour of the session, including for roughly the final 15 minutes of trading. Shares opened slightly lower after the retail chain announced the abrupt departure of its financial chief Tuesday afternoon, but moved slightly higher before trading volume and prices began to suddenly gain about 2:30 p.m.
Shares ended the day up 103.9% at $ 91.71, their highest close since plunging from more than $ 200 to $ 90 on Feb. 2, after an investment frenzy tracked to Reddit’s WallStreetBets board seemed to peter out. Shares jumped more than 40% in after-hours action once the final halt was pulled just after the bell.
Another target of WallStreetBets, theater chain AMC AMC, +18.05%, gained 18.1% to $ 9.09 in the regular session, then jumped more than 20% in the first 45 minutes of the extended session.
The online home for investors who have bet big on GameStop and AMC was suffering from an unexplained outage amid the gains Wednesday afternoon. Reddit said on its status page just after 1 p.m. that it was investigating the cause of errors that were keeping users from accessing the online message board, and announced before 2 p.m. that it had fixed the issue.
A trading app popular with investors who have bet on GameStop and other bedraggled stocks this year, Robinhood, is headed for its own outage. The company said Wednesday afternoon that trading in some stocks will be limited Thursday as it performs an update.