By Medha Singh
(Reuters) -Retail darlings GameStop (NYSE:GME) and AMC continued their slide into premarket trading on Thursday, as the euphoria over the return of "Roaring Kitty", who was the central figure in 2021 meme stock rally, fizzles out.
Shares of the struggling videogame retailer GameStop fell 14% to $34 after jumping as much as $64.83 this week, while fetching $1 billion in losses for short sellers, according to Ortex Technologies. Theater chain AMC shed 12% following an 88% gain since Friday's close.
Despite the losses on Wednesday, the two companies were among the top three most-traded shares by retail investors during the session, data from J.P.Morgan showed, a position they have held every day this week.
The sharp surge in the shares began after a series of posts from Keith Gill's X account "Roaring Kitty", whose bullish posts on GameStop was a reason for the 2021 meme stocks frenzy.
But unlike 2021, when Reddit users banded together to target highly shorted stocks that burnt bearish hedge funds, this time institutional investors too were part of the meme stock mania, Vanda Research, which tracks retail investor flows, said.
"There's more use of social media and professional investors know this, they're tracking this, and they're trying to take advantage of this," said Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at digital brokerage eToro.
"Even though there are more retail investors today, you're not seeing that follow through into the rally this time as you saw last time. Retail investors are once bitten twice shy after they ended up losing a lot of money last time round."
GameStop stock was still nearly 70% below its 2021 peak, while AMC, which hit a record low last month, was 98% off its all-time high.
Since his first post on Sunday, Gill has put out dozens of cryptic movies clips a day on X.com. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on what the posts mean and whether he planned on making his investments public again.
Former U.S. SEC Chair Jay Clayton told CNBC on Wednesday the posts have triggered "a wave of euphoric and speculative buying in the retail (trading) community which is never a good thing", adding that it was not illegal to say "I like a stock".
Retail purchases of GameStop eased to $5.7 million in the previous session from $15.9 million on Tuesday, which was the highest this year, Vanda data showed.
Similarly, for AMC, daily retail inflows dropped to $7.7 million on Wednesday from $51 million in the previous day.
Other highly shorted stocks that caught a bid this week also fell on Thursday. Tupperware dropped 5% to $1.71, while U.S.-listed BlackBerry (TSX:BB) shed 4.6%. Koss Corp slid 8% to $4.57.
GameStop and AMC were among the top ten securities with highest options volume on Wednesday, with majority of traders buying call options, which bet on a stock's rise, data from Options Clearing Corp showed.