Traders work at their posts where GameStop Corp. shares are traded on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, USA, June 12, 2024.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
GameStop The company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Thursday was disrupted by computer problems, with servers crashing due to overwhelming interest in the stream, a customer service representative for the company hosting the stream told CNBC.
The conference, scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET, was being held on ComputerShare, but many people trying to access the event received an error message saying the page couldn’t load, according to posts on social media site X and records from CNBC trying to access the event.
According to a YouTube stream from an unrelated user who purportedly recreated the feed, the annual meeting opened at 11:48 a.m. ET and was “immediately adjourned due to technical issues preventing shareholders from accessing the meeting.” According to the feed, GameStop said it would provide an update “as soon as possible” on rescheduling the event.
GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reached by phone, a ComputerShare customer service representative told CNBC that the company was reporting a “large number” of issues from people trying to access the meeting.
ComputerShare’s servers appear unable to handle the amount of traffic they received for the conference and are not used to the number of accounts, the spokesperson said, adding that ComputerShare’s technical team is working to resolve the issue and has advised those involved to try logging in “every five to 10 minutes.”
The fiasco came amid a new meme-stock boom that soared after Keith Gill, known online as Roaring Kitty, resumed posting on his social accounts after more than three years. Gill gained notoriety in online trading circles for betting big on the stock, which sparked a frenzy among retail investors.
GameStop surged 14.4% Thursday in another volatile trading session.
GameStop Corp. said on Tuesday that the video game company, riding the resurgence of the meme craze, has raised more than $2 billion in its recent stock market sale.GameStop said it plans to use the funds for general corporate purposes, including acquisitions and investments.
Traders are closely monitoring their positions in Roaring Kitty as aggressive selling could drag down the stock’s value.
In late afternoon trading on Wednesday, selling of GameStop shares intensified sharply at the same time as trading volume of call options held by Roaring Kitty surged. Call options give the buyer the right to buy shares at a certain price within a certain time period. If the stock price rises above the so-called strike price, the value of the option increases.
As many as 93,266 contracts of GameStop call options with a strike price of $20 expiring on June 21 traded hands on Wednesday, more than nine times the 30-day average volume of 10,233.
The price of those contracts fell more than 40% during trading hours, sending the stock plummeting 16.5%.
According to screenshots shared by Roaring Kitty on Monday night, he owned 120,000 of these Kohl’s contracts.
It’s unclear whether Roaring Kitty was indeed behind the massive trades, but options traders say his involvement is possible given the large amount of these contracts he holds.
The number of open contracts for those call options (the asset’s total open contracts) had fallen to 111,818 as of Thursday morning, already below Roaring Kitty’s initial figure of 120,000.
More than 47,000 similar contracts were signed on Thursday.
