Author: Joe Fonicello
In this Benzinga Power Hour clip from today, March 10th, leading GameStop analyst and GMEdd.com Co-Proprietor Rod Alzmann discusses the GameStop’s latest corporate developments alongside the rapid trading halts amid groundbreaking price volatility. Rod and Luke also reflect on the history of GameStop’s share price and what has caused certain price action.
While live on the air, GameStop shares reached a sixth trading halt in only a matter of hours.
After gaining 25% on the day, GameStop has announced their Q4 and fiscal year 2020 earnings release date.
The earnings will be reported after the market closes on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. This will be followed by an investor conference call at 5:00 pm Eastern. The phone number for the investor conference call is 877-451-6152 and the confirmation code is 13715567. The conference call will be archived for two months on GameStop’s corporate website.
If you’ve been in GameStop since late last year, you remember how difficult it was to get a spot in the Q3 earnings call. We can only imagine this will have magnitudes more listeners. Be sure to call in early!
Update at 6:00 PM: DOMO Capital has noted that GameStop changed their “About GameStop” section on this news release: “GameStop Corp., a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, is a digital-first omni-channel retailer, offering games and entertainment products…”
Formerly, the about section read: “GameStop Corp., a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, is a leading specialty retailer offering games and entertainment products…”
This new language is the same as what we noted being used on their hiring pages, back in February.
In a promotion sent to PowerUp Rewards members at around noon on March 9th, the company advertised an extra $50 credit on select hardware trade-ins, with an interesting choice of emoji.
Cohen? Is that you? Or could this just be another coincidence? Personally, I don’t see why they would have used this specific emoji unless they were alluding to the stock price. There’s plenty of other emojis they could have used, all of which suit the expression better. Seems like GameStop is having fun with the price-action to me.
In an incredibly brief article published in Business Insider, Ryan Cohen is recognized for his efforts thus far to transform GameStop into the Amazon of gaming.
Ryan Cohen, the Chewy cofounder and former CEO who convinced Wall Street that pets are big business, has a new pet project: a new initiative to transform GameStop, the world’s largest video game retailer, into the Amazon of gaming.
The coverage goes on to share how Cohen bought up a sizable chunk of GameStop shares in 2020, accumulating over 12% of the company by December and sending stock value soaring by investors who caught his move early (Hey, that’s us).
Reference is made to Cohen’s famous November 2020 letter to the board, and how Ryan is now in charge of enabling that “strategic vision” at GameStop, alongside likeminded colleagues.
While we appreciate any and all media coverage on RC’s GameStop transformation, this one didn’t present any non-surface-level info, and we prefer Business Insider’s earlier profile that shared more background. Check that one out instead, and pass on this one.
GameStop has announced that the board has formed a Strategic Planning and Capital Allocation Committee to identify initiatives that can further accelerate the Company’s transformation.
The Committee is comprised of Alan Attal, former Chief Operating Officer of Chewy, Ryan Cohen, former CEO of Chewy, and Kurt Wolf, chief investment officer of Hestia Capital Management, with Ryan Cohen serving as Chairperson of the committee.
The statement goes on to claim credit for some of the recent hirings and forward thinking initiatives
In the final paragraph, the news release states that the Committee will continue to focus on identifying actions that can transform GameStop into a technology business and help create enduring value for stockholders.
The committee is responsible for evaluating areas that include GameStop’s current operational objectives, capital structure and allocation priorities, digital capabilities, organizational footprint, and personnel.
If the committee is responsible for evaluating digital capabilities, that essentially places Ryan Cohen as GameStop Chairperson of E-Commerce.
In a tweet that was immediately deleted, Ryan Cohen shared an image of the former Pets.com mascot along with a nauseated face emoji.
Pets.com was a short-lived e-commerce business that sold pet accessories and supplies direct to consumers. It launched in August 1998 and went from an IPO on the Nasdaq to liquidation in 268 days.
The company rolled out a regional advertising campaign using a variety of media (TV, print, radio and eventually a Pets.com magazine). It started with a five-city advertising campaign rollout and then expanded the campaign to 10 cities by Christmas, 1999. The company succeeded wildly in making its mascot, the Pets.com sock puppet, well known. The Pets.com site design was extremely well received, garnering several advertising awards.
CNET named Pets.com as one of the greatest dot-com disasters in history.
After Pets.com liquidated, Hakan and Associates and Bar None, Inc. purchased the rights to the puppet under a joint venture called Sock Puppet LLC for $125,000 in 2002. Bar None, Inc., an American automotive loan firm, gave the puppet a new slogan:
GameStop investors are already beginning to dissect Cohen’s latest cryptic tweet, with a leading theory coming from DOMO Capital.
Hilariously enough, the mascot can be seen in a pets.com TV spot, taunting a delivery driver over his shorts.
“I like your shorts buddy!,” says the https://t.co/OoZoVlt4KP mascot in the commercial from the screenshot @RyanCohen tweeted.
Coincidence? Or some three-dimensional trolling? pic.twitter.com/xvuqesvFsP
— GMEdd.com (@GMEdd) March 4, 2021
Source: Kimmy Cabreramina, Wikipedia
Update: As of 2:19 PM, Ryan Cohen has issued an updated tweet of the sock puppet, with the pets.com branding most notably removed. We can only assume his legal team advised against using Petsmart’s trademark.
In this episode of the Modern Guilt podcast, hosts Damon and Hayden are joined for the second time by GMEdd.com Co-Proprietor Rod Alzmann. In the wake of Rod’s extraordinary GameStop journey and year to date, the guys debrief on the GameStop madness and look forwards to discuss the economic outlook for the 2020s, attempting to find the even keel between inflation fears and roaring twenties hype.