GameStop stock dips below $100 for the first time in a week as Mark Cuban tells Reddit users to ‘hold on’

‘If you can afford to hold the stock, you hold. I don’t own it, but that’s what I would do,’ said investor to r/WallStreetBets

Shares in GameStop dropped below $100 (£73) for the first time in a week on Tuesday, as small investors started to sell-off shares in the company - but billionaire investor Mark Cuban encouraged people to hold on.

On Tuesday morning, trading was temporarily suspended when shares in GameStop appeared down at 40 per cent (or roughly $114 per share).

And at one point, GameStop shares dropped by 60 per cent on the previous day's trading, at around $90 per share - the lowest since last week.  

The latest milestone in the saga surrounding GameStop comes after shares in the struggling Texas retailer peaked at $469 (£343) last Thursday, when shares swung as high as $469 and as low as $114.

Trading on shares of GameStop accelerated last week after a campaign by users on a Reddit thread, WallStreetBets, to push up the retailer’s share price.

And in the process, Reddit users and others handed heavy losses to investors on Wall Street who had previously bet against the retailer, with an action known as a short squeeze.

Shares in the 37-year-old chain, which plans to close 450 stores this year, were being sold at $3.25 a share about a year ago. On Tuesday, GameStop’s share price rose back above $100 - a sign that some Reddit users were continuing to hold on.

Mark Cuban, the investor and billionaire, told the WallStreetBets thread he believed users should hold on to their stock, as he took part in a Q&A, and said: “we will see what WSB is really made of. That is when you get to make it all work,”

“If you can afford to hold the stock, you hold. I don’t own it, but that’s what I would do,” Mr Cuban wrote, as reported by Bloomberg.

Other companies who Reddit users targeted in recent days, including Blackberry, Nokia and US retail chain Bed, Bath & Beyond, also dipped.

Silver, meanwhile, rose as shares in precious metal producers like First Majestic Silver and Fresnillo soared by 35 per cent and 18 per cent respectively on Monday.