GameStop The annual shareholder meeting was disrupted by computer problems on Thursday as servers crashed as a consequence of overwhelming interest within the stream, a customer support representative for the corporate hosting the stream told CNBC.
The meeting, which was scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Eastern time, was hosted on ComputerShare, but many users received an error message saying the page did not load when attempting to access the event, based on posts on social media site X and CNBC's own attempts to access it.
According to a YouTube stream by an independent user purporting to breed the feed, the annual meeting opened at 11:48 a.m. ET and was “immediately adjourned … due to technical difficulties that prevented shareholders from accessing the meeting.” GameStop said it would offer an update on when the event can be rescheduled “as soon as possible,” based on that feed.
GameStop was not immediately available for comment.
A ComputerShare customer support representative told CNBC by phone that the corporate was experiencing “massive” problems with people attempting to access the meeting.
The representative said ComputerShare's servers appeared unable to handle the traffic that occurred in the course of the meeting and weren’t used to the massive variety of accounts. They added that ComputerShare's technical team was working to resolve the problem and advised interested parties to log back in “every 5 to 10 minutes.”
The debacle got here amid a brand new meme stock craze that swelled when Keith Gill – known online as Roaring Kitty – returned to posting on his social media accounts after an absence of greater than three years. Gill rose to prominence in the net trading sector for his big bets on the stock, which sparked an uproar amongst retail traders.
GameStop rose 14.4% in one other volatile session on Thursday.
GameStop said Tuesday it raised over $2 billion in a recent stock sale because the video game company capitalized on the resurgent meme rally. GameStop said it intends to make use of the cash for general corporate purposes, which could include acquisitions and investments.
Traders have been closely monitoring Roaring Kitty's positioning as its lively selling could drive up the stock price.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the sell-off in GameStop shares suddenly intensified, just as trading volume in the decision options owned by Roaring Kitty skyrocketed. Call options give the client the fitting to purchase a stock at a set price inside a certain time period. Their value increases when the worth of the stock rises above what’s often known as the strike price.
GameStop calls with a $20 strike price and a June 21 expiration saw a whopping 93,266 contracts traded on Wednesday, greater than nine times the 30-day average volume of 10,233 contracts.
The price of those contracts fell greater than 40% in the course of the session, while the stock fell 16.5%.
According to a screenshot he shared Monday evening, Roaring Kitty owned 120,000 contracts of those calls.
It's unclear if Roaring Kitty was actually behind the massive volume, but options traders said he might be involved since he’s such a big holder of those contracts.
The open interest of those calls, the entire variety of unsettled contracts for an asset, has fallen to 111,818 contracts since Thursday morning, already below Roaring Kitty's original 120,000 contracts.
More than 47,000 such contracts modified hands on Thursday.
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