GameStop’s Stock Doubles After CFO Resigns, Soaring From $45 to $92
How’s this for a sequel: GameStop’s stock price more than doubled on Wednesday, mirroring the gaming retailer’s much-publicized Wall Street surge last month — a day after CFO Jim Bell announced his resignation.
GameStop opened Wednesday trading a little below $45 per share and spent much of the day hovering between $48-$54 per share. The company’s stock later spiked during the final hour of trading, closing the day at $91.71 per share — up 104% — following two trading halts. That momentum carried over to after-hours trading, with GameStop shares going for about $150 two hours after the closing bell.
The big jump was an easy reminder of GameStop’s wild January, when the company’s share price ran from about $20 per share to a high of $483 per share in a matter of weeks. GameStop’s run was spurred on, in part, by the backing of WallStreetBets, a popular Reddit forum where many users championed the retailer; one aspect that made GameStop especially attractive to WSB users was that it was heavily shorted, or bet against — a reality that helped the company’s stock rocket higher once investors scrambled to grab GameStop shares.
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GameStop’s meteoric rise was derailed in late January, when stock trading app Robinhood blocked users from buying shares of GameStop and other popular “meme stocks” like AMC and BlackBerry for one day.
Now, after seeing GameStop trade in the $40-$60 range for much of February, many WallStreetBets users were back to celebrating on Wednesday.
“Don’t call it a comeback!” one user exclaimed, while sharing a clip from LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.”
Bell’s resignation was likely the galvanizing force behind Wednesday’s big run. Activist investor Ryan Cohen, the co-founder and former CEO of Chewy who took a major stake in GameStop last year, criticized GameStop’s executive team last November, saying the company needed to “pivot toward becoming a technology-driven business that excels in the gaming and digital experience worlds.” Many faithful GameStop shareholders have been clamoring for the company to follow Cohen’s guidance more, which may be key reason why, following Bell’s exit, its shares jumped Wednesday.
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