By Sinéad Carew, Aaron Saldanha and Sagarika Jaisinghani
(Reuters) - Shares of GameStop Corp lost more than a quarter of their value on Thursday and other so-called meme stocks also declined in a sell-off that hit a broad range of names favored by retail investors.
The video game retailer’s shares closed down 27.16% at $220.39, their biggest one-day percentage loss in 11 weeks. The drop came a day after GameStop said in a quarterly report that it may sell up to 5 million new shares, sparking concerns of potential dilution for existing shareholders.
"The threat of dilution from the five million-share sale is the dagger in the hearts of GameStop shareholders," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management. "The meme trade is not working today, so logic for at least one day has returned."
Soaring rallies in the shares of GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings over the past month have helped reinvigorate the meme stock frenzy that began earlier this year and fueled big moves in a fresh crop of names popular with investors on forums such as Reddit’s WallStreetBets.
