What’s going on with $GME?

The story behind the internet’s favorite “meme stock”.

If you use social media or keep half an eye on financial news, you’ve probably seen something a little surprising. $GME, the stock symbol for GameStop, has risen in value a massive 5,275.30% in price. But what’s going on here?? And what even is a naked short anyway??

2019

Let us go back to 2019, a time before COVID, and meet the protagonist of this story — GameStop.
GameStop is a business in trouble. A brick-and-mortar store stuck in the 2010s that has been unable or unwilling to adapt to the digital and on-demand nature of modern consumers. Ironic really for a tech and electronic retailer to be so behind the times. To put it simply — things are looking pretty bad for GameStop. At the end of 2019 they posted a loss of $470 million.

2020

Fast forward to March 2020 — COVID is now running riot around the world.

Unsurprisingly, GameStop's performance is not helped by a deadly pandemic, and sales drop even further. They plan to close hundreds of stores nationwide. At this point, the stock price is ~$4.
The rest of 2020 is a mixed bag for GameStop. While having no traffic to physical stores is definitely causing some pain, it turns out that people who are stuck at home all day every day…