2021: a Reddit short squeeze kept GameStop from going under.
2026: GameStop is bidding $55B for eBay, a company 4x its size.
If it lands, this might be the strangest full circle moment public markets have ever produced.
Another interesting observation to me is not that Gamestop was able to go from this full circle moment but rather the fact that Reddit has such influence that it was able to create the conditions which led here.
If Gamestop is the king, then reddit was the king-maker.
They have not made a ton of money yet, but they have turned the business around in a significant way. Where GameStop lost money every quarter from 2019 to 2023, it has now had 8 profitable quarters in a row.
The fact that investors are giving GameStop money is a good thing for GameStop; It is a signal of confidence. It is not a detriment like you try to position it.
They also just closed another 470 stores this year. Sales are half of what they were in 2019.
Basically they got a huge cash infusion from memestock hodlers trying to get to the moon. Greater than half of their profits are now from the interest on that money, which is wild.
However, the retail business itself is still failing because no one buys video games at the mall anymore.
It's not an answer to the question of a turnaround, and therefore low quality information? How much you have in assets does not correlate with the ongoing success of the business. Examining the day to day business of Gamestop and excluding the memestock shenanigans leaves a very bad business.
The core business has declining revenue - net sales 2016 $8.6b, 2025 $3.5b and still in decline. Cash flow from operations also continues to shrink.
Store footprint has shrunk.
The underlying business stinks, even if they made a ton of money selling stock, they haven't done anything significant to halt the spiral.
Perhaps a simple analogy would work here - you made $86,000 in 2016, and had a $6,000 surplus that represents your profit. In 2020 you made $50,000 and spent $5,0000 of your savings to stay afloat. You shrink your lifestyle. Now in 2025, you make $35,000 a year, and have a $2,000 surplus. There are no prospects for more income and you expect to earn $32,500 next year, and maybe $30,000 the year after. Would you consider this a turnaround for your finances?
Likewise, the company's revenue has declined ~60% in the last ten years, and declined 5% from 2024 to 2025. The business became marginally profitable when they shrank the business by reducing operating expenses and produced a small profit.
There are no significant avenues for growth in their current business model, revenue will continue to decline, as it has for the last ten years because the core model of re-selling used games continues to shrink. As revenue decline continues, they'll run out of people to lay off and stores to close, there will be no profit because the revenue is too small, and the company will BK.
There is no turn around, the company continues a death spiral.
You can see from the right hand column that many of those companies have delivered returns over the last twelve months, unlike GameStop. Also it appears many companies that don't have $9 billion are generating returns as well.
You seem to be making some of your statements as if they exist in a vacuum. The context is easily half the story.
For instance, do you know where that $9 billion in cash came from? It was not revenue I’ll tell you that much. Their revenue has been rapidly dropping, they’re shuttering stores, etc. They didn’t get that cash from successfully turning around operations.
