Markets
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Luke Kawa

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen is eyeing what he says could be a “genius or totally, totally foolish” major acquisition

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen told The Wall Street Journal that he’s on the hunt for a “big” acquisition in the consumer or retail industry that would ultimately either “be genius or totally, totally foolish.”

During his tenure atop the company, Cohen has been successful in trimming costs and growing the company’s collectibles business. But the potential for him to pursue a “transformative” acquisition — buoyed by all the money the company was able to raise during episodic meme stock rallies — has been cited as a key pillar of the bull case by its investors, including Keith Gill aka Roaring Kitty and Michael Burry of “The Big Short” game, who recently announced that he’s long the stock.

GameStop has recently shifted its crypto holdings from cold storage to Coinbase Prime, which may also hint at a plan to boost liquidity through crypto sales to pursue M&A opportunities. Shares are up 2% as of 4:13 a.m. ET on Friday.

Cohen has a strong incentive to shoot for the moon:

The CEO recently agreed to a package that would tie his pay completely to the company’s market value and the amount of cumulative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization that the company generates under his leadership.

The proposed deal would see Cohen start to receive stock options in the event that GameStop’s market capitalization exceeds $20 billion while also booking $2 billion in cumulative EBITDA from Q1 2026 onwards.

On a closing basis, GameStop has exceeded this $20 billion threshold only during its 2021 meme stock mania. And, due to heavy losses from 2019 through early 2022, it's taken GameStop a full decade to generate its latest $2 billion in cumulative EBITDA.

Cohen’s pay package has yet to be approved by shareholders, but he’s not waiting for the green light to increase his financial ties to the retailer he runs. Last week, he purchased 1 million shares of company stock for roughly $21.4 million, and opined that any CEO who fails to buy their stock in the open market with their own money should be fired.

Meanwhile, Monday’s revelation that Burry is a GME owner spurred the most retail buying of GameStop shares since late Q1 2025, when the company unveiled its bitcoin treasury strategy, per JPMorgan.

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Luke Kawa

TechCreate keeps going parabolic and the company doesn’t know why

Singapore-based payment software company TechCreate mooned on Thursday, rising 889% and prompting management to issue a statement that “it is not aware of any material nonpublic information that has not been publicly disclosed that would account for the recent trading activity.”

This no news momentum is continuing: shares are up more than 100% in premarket trading on Friday, as of 5:30 a.m. ET. All told, some $280 million changed hands in the stock in US trading yesterday, roughly 24 times its average volume from the previous 20 sessions.

As of mid-January, roughly one quarter of the stock’s float was sold short, per data from Bloomberg, and that float makes up only about 15% of shares outstanding.

Can’t say I remember the last time I’ve seen a $150 million market cap company turn into a $3 billion market cap company in under 24 hours.

Luke Kawa
48m
President Trump plans to nominate former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve

Treasury yields and the US dollar rose following reports that Warsh would be named to succeed Jerome Powell.

G-20 Finance Ministers And Central Bank Governors Meeting Begins
markets
Jon Keegan

Microsoft shares have biggest single-day drop since March 2020

Yesterday, Microsoft reported strong earnings and revenue for its second quarter, but the stock plunged after-hours. Investors seem to have been concerned about so much of Microsoft’s booked contracts coming from one company — OpenAI — as well as its slowing cloud growth.

Today, it got worse. Microsoft shares sank 10%, suffering their largest single-day drop since the start of the Covid lockdown in March 2020.

markets
Matt Phillips

Western Digital beats Wall Street estimates for Q2 sales, EPS

Western Digital posted better-than-expected quarterly sales and earnings-per-share figures after the close Thursday, though the shares slipped after-hours. 

Here’s how the results looked:

  • Fiscal Q2 revenue of $3.02 billion vs. the $2.93 billion consensus analyst expectation, per FactSet.

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $2.13 vs. the $1.93 analysts predicted.

  • Fiscal Q3 guidance for adjusted EPS of $2.15 to $2.45 vs. analyst estimates of $1.99.

  • Guidance for Q3 sales of $3.1 billion to $3.3 billion vs. estimates of $2.98 billion.

Western Digital — and rival Seagate Technology Holdings — were among the market’s best performers last year, rising 282% and 219%, respectively, as data storage became a key bottleneck for hyperscalers. 

The shares are romping into 2026 as well, with both stocks up more than 60% in January through the close of trading on Thursday. 

Sandisk fiscal Q2 earnings results

Sandisk blows past quarterly earnings expectations, forecasts blockbuster Q3 numbers

It was the best performer in the S&P 500 last year. It’s already doubled in January. And shares are soaring after-hours.

Matt Phillips14h

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