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Game Over?

The winning GameStop lottery tickets are being cashed in

Luke Kawa

Traders are taking profits in the boldest wagers that were made ahead of this week’s surge in GameStop.

In particular, we’re talking about the call options that would be in-the-money if GameStop broke above $30 by the end of this week. Shares of GameStop were as high as $64.83 in early trading on Tuesday, and as low as $21 as of 2:00pm ET on Wednesday.

We can infer these lotto tickets are being cashed by looking at how the trades in the $30-strike calls have been executed today.

For background: Trades can take place on the bid, the ask, or the mid.

  • The bid is the highest price a buyer will pay.

  • The ask, which is higher than the bid, is the lowest price a seller is willing to accept.

  • The mid – well, I trust you to figure that one out.

From April 25 – when we started to see activity in these options pick up – through Tuesday, volumes were fairly evenly split between those that took place on the bid, ask, or mid, with those on the ask side outnumbering the bid.

That’s not the story today: through 2:00pm ET, nearly five times as many trades in these $30-strike options are taking place on the bid versus the ask.

All else equal, if a trade is taking place on the bid, it suggests a motivated seller, one willing to accept the lowest price on offer. 

“Take the money and run,” said Michael Purves, CEO of Tallbacken Capital Advisors, on the price action in these options. “It would make a ton of sense for these long call options to be closed on the bid side.”

Open interest in the $30-strike call options that expire at the end of this week fell from 44,713 to 37,898 on Tuesday. That number looks like it’s due to fall further in light of the profile of these trades.

Closing out these (largely successful) wagers is one factor putting downward pressure on shares of GameStop today, which are down about 20% as of 2:00pm.

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“We have been in high-volume production on HBM4. We’ve commenced customer shipments of HBM4 and we see shipment volumes ramping successfully this calendar Q1,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy said at a conference hosted by Wolfe Research. “This is a quarter earlier than we mentioned during our December earnings call.”

HBM4 refers to the newest edition of high-bandwidth memory chips.

Micron has arguably been the laggard in bringing these chips to market compared to peers SK Hynix and Samsung, which may have caused the company to miss out on some high-profile customers (namely, Nvidia). But demand for these components is so intense, and running ahead of production, that finding willing buyers shouldn’t be much of a challenge even at ever-escalating prices.

Murphy added that he sees supply-demand tightness for high-bandwidth memory chips persisting beyond calendar year 2026.

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Beta Technologies, the electric aircraft maker that went public in November, is soaring in early Wednesday trading. The stock climbed before markets opened following an upgrade from Jefferies from “hold” to “buy” with a $30 price target, reflecting a nearly 80% climb from its price as of Tuesday’s close.

Jefferies believes Beta shares are attractive after recent risk-off trading — the stock is down 40% since the beginning of the year.

Also appearing to boost optimism in Beta is an SEC filing on Tuesday that indicated Amazon owns a 5.3% stake in the company. The stake isn’t new: Amazon was listed as a 5% or greater shareholder in Beta’s November IPO.

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Analysts give mixed reviews on Robinhood’s Q4 results

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Here’s what analysts had to say about the print:

Barclays: “Q4 came in softer than expected as lower take rates in options and crypto impacted transaction revenues, and lower [securities] lending in particular impacted [net interest income].”

Mizuho: “Prediction Markets were strong, but overall mixed quarter.”

Piper Sandler: “Bottom line, despite these ST headwinds which we laid out in our note last week, our LT thesis remains intact. If you can stomach the volatility, HOOD is the best way to play secular growth in retail trading and the closest FinTech platform we’ve ever seen to achieving ‘super app’ status.”

Zack’s Investment Research: “Crypto trading revenue fell 38% year over year in Q4, and January data showed another 57% decline in app-based crypto volumes. Unfortunately, that’s not a seasonal blip, that’s a structural slowdown in one of Robinhood’s historically highest-margin engagement drivers.”

Citizens JMP: “Slight revenue shortfall for Robinhood Markets but better expense performance, broadening business contribution, and a full roadmap should support strong growth again in 2026; reiterate our Market Outperform rating.”

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Job growth crushes estimates in January, unemployment rate unexpectedly dips to 4.3%

The American labor market, ladies and gentlemen.

The January jobs report was a blockbuster, with nonfarm payrolls growth of 130,000.

Economists polled by Bloomberg expected nonfarm payroll growth of 65,000 for the month. Heading into this release, the event contracts trading closest to a coin flip were “above 50,000” and “above 60,000,” suggesting the masses were less optimistic than Wall Street.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, while economists had anticipated it would hold steady at 4.4%.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF extended gains in premarket trading following this release.

The employment gains were very narrowly focused on an industry basis: healthcare accounted for a whopping 123,500, or 95%, of the net job growth.

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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.