GameStop Corp. erased earlier losses to rise to the highest level since Feb. 1 as a wave of Reddit users appeared to rush back into its shares.

Shares of the video-game retailer quickly accelerated starting around 2:25 p.m. in New York amid a renewed rush of Reddit posts touting the stocks. Movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and headphone maker Koss Corp., both retail investor favorites, jumped alongside GameStop to briefly turn positive Thursday before closing lower.

The mid-afternoon rally came despite a bloody session for stocks and bonds with the S&P 500 briefly erasing its gain for 2021. GameStop ended Thursday up 6.6 per cent to US$132.35, its best close in about a month. Shares rose to US$134.88 in after-hours trading.

Thursday’s spike came minutes after activist investor and GameStop board member Ryan Cohen tweeted an apparent screenshot from a Pets.com television ad. Some Twitter users speculated that the image was a cryptic message about GameStop’s outlook.

The last time Cohen posted on the social media platform -- a picture of an ice cream cone -- shares soared amid a flurry of day trader activity. That tweet helped propel the Grapevine, Texas-based company to its second best week ever and a 142 per cent rally over two days.