Reddit trading fever strikes UK as Nokia, GameStop and BlackBerry surge

Shares in old-school technology soared thanks to a Reddit thread. Photo / 123RF

A Reddit-driven day trading frenzy that has been blamed for huge surges in some tech stocks is spreading to the UK, according to new data.

Shares in old-school technology stocks including BlackBerry, Nokia and GameStop have soared by as much as 400pc this year.

The rises have been driven in part by army of Reddit-charged day traders using the site's WallStreetBets forum to pump up shares and fight back against high levels of interest by short-sellers.

British investors are now getting involved. On Trading212, a London-based stockbroker favoured by younger investors, GameStop, Blackberry and Nokia occupied the top three spots in its "hotlist" on Tuesday, with more than 18,000 users buying shares in the three companies.

Customers of more established stock brokers have also been getting in on the action. GameStop was the second most bought share by customers of online stockbroker AJ Bell on Tuesday, with the value of deals accounting for 4.1pc of the total stocks traded. Blackberry and Nokia also featured in the top 50.

On both Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor, the buzz surrounding GameStop propelled the stock into their top 20 most popular trades over the past week.

Shares in Finland's Nokia have also jumped sharply after Reddit-charged day traders piled in.

Shares in Nokia, which sells telecoms equipment for networks, were up by as much as 8pc on Tuesday, after a 13pc spike on Monday.

On Reddit's WallStreetBets forum, amateur traders have promoted buying into the stock, in posts titled: "The real case for Nokia" and "Debunking common myths". Some of the posts on the site have received tens of thousands of "upvotes" and hundreds of comments.

According to Bloomberg, almost 300m of Nokia's US-listed shares changed hands on Monday - a 700pc spike on its 30-day average. Shares may also have received a bump from Handelsbanken raising its price target this week on the back of new contracts.

Nokia did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile Etsy shares jumped on Tuesday after the e-commerce company earned praise from Elon Musk, and GameStop soared for the fourth session to $91, catapulting the former small cap's market value to $6.3bn - more than Alaska Air or Marathon Oil.

I kinda love Etsy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2021

Its rise began after amateur retail traders bought large numbers of options in the stock following comments by short seller Citron Research that GameStop was "pretty much in terminal decline".

Citron founder Andrew Left said he would later stop commenting on the stock due to the "angry mob".

GameStop started the year at $17 and trading has been halted multiple times in an attempt to calm volatility.

Neil Campling, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities, said it was "as if someone found a newspaper from 2006 to identify who were the golden tech companies from back then".

"Then add in the perceived attraction of a low absolute dollar stock price in the single digits and a brand people remember, and bought blindly hoping they had discovered the next Tesla."

BlackBerry responded to the 170pc spike in its share price since the start of this year by saying it was "not aware of any material, undisclosed corporate developments and has not material change in its business or affairs that has not been publicly disclosed that would account for the recent increase in the market price or trading volume of its common shares".

The company has not produced its own BlackBerry phones since 2016, and instead has turned its focus to offering security software for connected devices, industrial facilities and cars.