Value investor Bill Miller told CNBC on Tuesday that one of his firm’s funds sold its GameStop holdings during the Reddit-fueled frenzy that began earlier this year.
“We had GameStop in our deep-value product, and I think our cost on it was around $4 or something,” Miller said in an interview on “The Exchange.” “When it got into the $70s is when we sold it, then it of course went to $400.”
Shares of GameStop eventually retreated sharply from their Jan. 28 high of $483, falling below $50 at one point in February as the initial headline-grabbing short squeeze came to an end.
However, the stock has remained both volatile and in focus as the video-game retailer announces steps in its digital transformation. GameStop shares were down over 5% Tuesday to around $155 apiece, putting the company’s market cap at nearly $11 billion.
The stock remains up almost 730% year to date and more than 2,600% in the past 12 months. At this time last year, GameStop shares traded below $5.
Miller, founder and chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners, said his firm has shied away from GameStop and other so-called meme stocks that are popular with investors who are active on online message forums.
“They’re not of interest right now because they’re in the grip of the Reddit crowd and you’re not able to actually analyze them in the same way you’re able to other things because the price is dominating the fundamentals,” said Miller, who managed a fund that beat the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years while he worked at Legg Mason.
Miller also told CNBC he remains bullish on bitcoin, saying that demand continues to outpace supply of the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value. “That’s all you really need to know, and that means it’s going higher,” he said.
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