Direct registering the shares they own under their name through the transfer agent has become a trend among GameStop retail investors. They are doing this because they think if they lock the float, the short hedge fund won’t be able to locate the stock to short it, hence the stock price would go up.

They might think that if the number of shares DRS’d exceeds the float, GameStop would be able to declare the float has been locked and they would win the race, but unfortunately, that might not be the case.

The reason is that not all of retail investors DRS’d shares will be counted in the GameStop’s quarter reports.

If user has enrolled in Computershare’s DirectStock plan, their shares will become DSPP shares which could be held by DTCC. If Computershare decided to move these shares into DTCC for operational efficiency, these shares won’t be counted into GameStop report.

In essence, GameStop Report Retail Number = DRS + ( DSPP - shares for operational efficiency).

At the moment, GameStop reported 75.4M direct registered shares, if 29% of all DRS sahres become DSPP, retail investor could have already DRS’d 75.4 - 105.8M shares depends on how many DSPP shares moved to DTCC.

So how many shares do GameStop retail investors need to DRS in order for the company to declare the float being locked?

The answer depends on two factors:

• The percentage of all shares become DSPP.
• The percentage of DSPP shares moved to DTCC.

Below are some sample data:

So when GameStop published quarter report on Nov. 30, 2023, retail investors could have already DRS’d 107.25M if 30% of all their shares enrolled into DireckStock plan.