Shares in small Australian nickel and cobalt explorer GME Resources jumped as much as 53% on Thursday, apparently driven by the company’s stock ticker outlook to U.S. retail investor darling GameStop.
GME Resources stock rose as much as four Australian cents to A $ 0.115 ($ 0.0878) in early trading, before falling back to around $ 0.09 before lunchtime.
“People are buying the stock for s —- and giggles, just because of the ticker symbol,” said market analyst Kyle Rodda of IG Markets breaches in Melbourne.
“It’s all captured in this GameStop game,” he said.
“It has nothing to do with the company and has absolutely nothing to do with this deceptive wonder we are seeing right now where those Redditers who want to swim into those stocks and their playing around with the market a bit for the sport itself. “
Shares of U.S. videogame retailer GameStop have gone up about 17-fold since January 12 as small investors, organizing on social media, have rallied in and made professional short sellers retire at great loss.