Forget the airlines, they’ve sorted themselves and all looks plain sailing as of the the lunch break on Day 3 of Week 2 on Wall Street.

Stocks have risen in the morning sun, while 2-year US Treasury yields and a relaxed American dollar fluctuate in a gentle breeze with the carefree confidence of the Stars and Stripes, planted proudly above Capitol Hill (excepting of course this time last year).

Yes, all appears well on Wall Street…

But look out the window and there is turbulence all round my friends on what everyone around here (this reporter) are coming to call Big Wednesday ™ ® .

There’s tension in the air ahead of tonight’s key US consumer price index (CPI). Tension so thick you couldn’t cut it with anything, not even Kevin Costner’s katana.

Tech stocks which have endured the katana-end of the Federal Reserve’s rate tightening cycle are preempting further evidence of a deceleration of the recently rampant price of life.

But the bigger news is that… no, wait…

In the memetime… the gaming community has come out to play.

GameStop, (GME) the dead-in-the-water video game retailer and breakout Reddit hero of meme-stock fame, jumped in eerily familiar fashion in early business, out of the gates and up by circa 7%.

And whence goes GME, fellow meme-stock sidekick AMC Entertainment is not far away… but in this case it’s way ahead – somne 16%. While shares of the video game retailer plunged roughly 50% last year (AMC lost 75% and Bed Bath & Beyond took a long one to the tune of 80%), it’s undoubtedly galling for the adults in the room.

Heading to potential bankruptcy and laying off staff? Bed Bath and Beyond is, but this morning in New York, the stock is up hmmm… 48%%.

Funnily enough CNBC says that about 48% of Bed Bath & Beyond’s float shares are sold short, (against the usual circa 5% short hold interest in a typical US security) quoting S3 Partners.

“For GameStop, the short interest stands at 21%, down from more than 100% at the height of the meme stock mania in 2021, according to FactSet. AMC has also 21% of shares sold short,” CNBC reports.

The moves – quite detached from the reality-of-sorts which usually moves markets hearkens back to 2021 when rebelling retail traders across platforms like RobinHood gathered on social posts like Reddit to campaign and bet against heavily shorted stocks.

The dastardly plans worked, creating huge and painful short squeezes and earning the title Meme Stocks.

 

Memewhile, Part Deux

Last week, Nvidia launched the third model in its current generation ‘Ada Lovelace’ product lineup, named the RTX 4070 Ti. It retails for US$799, or about Au$24,585.

Infamously, sometime in September, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang declared that “**Moore’s Law is dead.”

Alas. Jensen may’ve been right.

Only it’s Nvidia’s overly-touted graphics card that’s gone and proven the point. A point one would hop Huang was not trying to make.

 

Outraged gamers

The reception from the gaming community has been very negative. GamersNexus’ Stephen Burke posted this gruesome takedown on Twitter.

The general mood is agreement with this guy and fury at Nvidia for ruining various games ands hopes. But Nvidia stock is doing ok for now.