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Luke Kawa

GameStop pops as traders hope Ryan Cohen is borrowing Saylor’s strategy

A picture can be worth a thousand words. In this case, all of those are “buy.”

There’s always a tweet (behind any GameStop rally), and shares of the operationally challenged video game retailer are up about 3% in premarket trading after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo with Michael Saylor to X.

Saylor runs Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin. The warm market response to Cohen’s tweet suggests that traders are hoping that Cohen uses some of GameStop’s $4.6 billion in cash and cash-like securities to take a page from Saylor’s playbook. (That playbook has one rule: buy bitcoin).

GameStop and Strategy don’t make money from their actual business operations. Whereas GameStop has been able to generate income by cosplaying as a T-bill fund, Strategy has been at the other end of the risk spectrum, benefiting from the value of the bitcoin it holds on its balance sheet rising by about $14 billion.

GameStop’s foray into the crypto realm was largely ineffectual. In January 2022, news broke that the video game retailer had been staffing up for a non-fungible token (NFT) platform. That was launched in July of that year, effectively top-ticking enthusiasm for ownership of this form of digital art. Ryan Cohen became CEO in September 2023, and this marketplace was closed to trading by early February 2024.

Cohen’s leadership is integral to major shareholder and cheerleader Keith Gill’s bull case for the company.

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SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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