Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen joined GameStop's board of directors
The shares of GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) are surging this morning, last seen up 10.4% to trade at $34.65. The equity is on its way to a four-day win streak, following the addition of Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen -- as well as two other former Chewy executives -- to GameStop's board of directors. The optimism was boosted by the company's holiday sales, which showed online sales surged 309%, accounting for more than a third of GameStop's holiday revenue, and offsetting the 3.1% loss in net sales from a year ago.
The stock is also experiencing a short squeeze, as short interest jumped 4.7% in the last two reporting periods, and the 71.20 million shares sold short accounts for a whopping 69.2% of the stock's total available float. At GME's average pace of trading, it would take over six days for shorts to buy back their bearish bets.
On the charts, GME soared to $38.65 during yesterday's trading, its highest level since November 2015 and more than 15 times the amount the equity fell to during the broader market's mid-March pullback. Year-over-year, the security has managed a 631.3% rise, and has already added 79% in 2021.
Still, the majority of the brokerage bunch aren't convinced, which could leave the door open for bull notes, should this positive price action continue. More specifically, just one of the analysts in coverage carries a "strong buy" on Gamestop stock, while five say "hold" or worse. Plus, the 12-month consensus price target of $11.01 is a 69.4% discount to current levels.
Lastly, today's options pits are seeing a flurry of activity from both sides of the aisle. Already, 126,000 calls and 67,000 puts have exchanged hands -- four times the intraday average with overall volume pacing for the 99th percentile of its annual range. Most popular by far is the January 40 call, followed by the 55 call from the same series, with new positions being opened at the latter.