Hedge Fund Nabbed Millions of GameStop, AMC Shares Before Meme Stocks Skyrocketed

By Jason Nelson

New York-based hedge fund Renaissance Technologies went in big on GameStop before this week's crazy rally, acquiring over 1 million shares in the game store franchise as of March 2024, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the first quarter filing, Renaissance Technologies—an algorithm-based investment firm—said it held 1,004,958 shares of GameStop, valued at $12,582 at the time.

GameStop (GME) has risen sharply in the last 72 hours since the apparent return of fabled trader Keith Gill, aka “Roaring Kitty,” sent traders into a frenzy. On Tuesday, the price of GameStop’s stock surged 130% to $64.83 in premarket trading. This briefly boosted the value of Renaissance Technologies’ GME holdings to $65.2 million—an astronomical but momentary gain of over 5,000%.

The rally may be short-lived, however, as the stock crashed 30% to $34.12 on Wednesday.

The firm also disclosed holding 8,700,396 shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), which was also swept up in this week’s meme stock frenzy.

When Renaissance filed, its 8,700,396 shares had a total value of $32,365. AMC stock began the week trading at $3.52. On Tuesday, AMC stock rose 235.8% to $11.82 bringing Renaissance Technologies’ holdings to $102.8 million—a potential gain of over 3,000%. But the AMC stock price dropped 52.71% today, currently trading at $5.59 per share—bringing Renaissance’s AMC holdings back to $48.6 million.

Renaissance Technologies also has its hands in the cryptocurrency space with investments in several Bitcoin ETFs, including 26,500 shares of Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, 94,900 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, 24,100 shares of Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, and 14,500 shares of Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF.

Combined, Renaissance Technologies' total crypto investments add up to just over $63.6 million, a small portion of its over $100 billion in assets under management.

Founded in 1982, Renaissance Technology (also known as RenTech or RenTec) develops quantitative trading algorithms that guide investment strategies for its clients.

Quantitative trading, also known as algorithmic trading, is a method of making financial market trading decisions using computational algorithms, statistical analysis, mathematical models, and increasingly artificial intelligence.

Other notable investments in the SEC filing include 550,625 shares of Nvidia, 106,696 shares of Adobe, 676,432 shares of Amazon 1.76 million shares of Tesla, as well as stock holdings in pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Renaissance Technologies did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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