Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
- “Starting tomorrow, we plan to allow limited buys of these securities,” Robinhood said in a statement.
- The platform had halted trading Thursday due to the “extraordinary circumstances” and “financial requirements.”
- Shares of GameStop, AMC, Koss, and other Reddit favorites are spiking in response.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Shares of GameStop, AMC, Koss, and other Reddit favorites skyrocketed Friday morning after Robinhood announced it would lift trading restrictions in popular Reddit stocks.
Friday’s premarket gains erased some of the heavy losses for the stocks that came after Robinhood and other trading apps placed certain restrictions on trading in popular stocks found on the WallStreetBets Reddit forum.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Robinhood said they were forced to restrict trading “amid this week’s extraordinary circumstances” because as a brokerage firm, they have “many financial requirements, including SEC net capital obligations and clearinghouse deposits.”
The statement continued, “starting tomorrow, we plan to allow limited buys of these securities. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and may make adjustments as needed.”
The move by Robinhood comes after share prices of companies like GameStop, BlackBerry, and AMC surged on the back of Reddit day traders targeting heavily-shorted stocks and legacy tech names.
The day traders have been attempting to force short and gamma squeeze conditions which allow for monumental daily price appreciation.
After Robinhood restricted trading in these popular names, the company was immediately hit with serious blowback as customers "review-bombed" the app with nearly 300,000 negative reviews on the Google Play store.
Robinhood even faces litigation in New York after a class-action lawsuit was filed Thursday, alleging the trading app "deprived their customers of the ability to use their service" in an attempt "to manipulate the market for the benefit of people and financial intuitions."
In response, Robinhood said in a statement, "to be clear, this was a risk-management decision, and was not made on the direction of the market makers we route to."
Shares of GameStop are up 93% Friday morning and AMC is following suit with shares up 60%.
Milwaukee-based Koss, which designs and manufactures headphones, is also seeing monumental gains, up as much as 70% Friday morning.
Koss's stock hasn't been known for volatility over the past five years. That was until January 26, when Koss became a Reddit favorite after a tweet identified the company as having a high short interest rate making them the perfect target for traders looking to profit off of a short squeeze.
Koss, unlike GameStop and AMC, isn't only on the front foot Friday morning due to platforms allowing traders back in. The company also outperformed in its latest earnings release.
Koss posted a net income of $508,890, compared to a net loss of $215,713 for the year-ago quarter. And the company was able to boost revenues by 18.4% year-over-year. It also was able to earn $0.07 per share for the quarter after losing $0.03 in the year-ago period.
"The increase in net sales for the quarter and first six months has been across several markets with US distributors, European distributors, and domestic direct to consumer sales leading the way," said Michael J. Koss, Chairman and CEO.
Shares of Koss traded at $68.35 as of 9:58 AM EST.