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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (167702)	1/27/2021 8:39:43 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217757

RE <<ROFLMAO>> full-spectrum counter attack formed ... bloomberg.com Redditor Revolt Propels Game Reseller Largely Loathed by Gamers Jason Schreier 28 January 2021, 04:43 GMT+8 There’s some irony in the fact that Reddit, an online chat community full of gamers, has propelled GameStop Corp. to unbelievable levels. After all, video game fans have loved to hate the struggling retailer for decades. Over the past week, a collective of individual traders on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community sent GameStop stock to astronomical heights in an experiment to stick it to hedge funds, which had sold the stock short. At the beginning of this year, GameStop was trading at $17. By Wednesday afternoon, it was over $340, valuing the unprofitable company at more than $25 billion. GameStop’s resuscitation may seem like it should be inherently good news for video game fans. But unlike the beloved retailer Toys R Us Inc., GameStop was never very popular among gamers. The Reddit community choosing GameStop as the stock to pump may have been one giant practical joke. “It’s like in movies when the bullies vote for the nerd to be prom queen just to prank her,” said Andy Cortez, a host and producer for the video game YouTube channel Kinda Funny. Gamers have a long list of complaints about Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop, from the way they treat employees to their pushy and controversial sales tactics. Over the years, many gamers begrudgingly shopped at GameStop only because they had little choice. The store made it easy to trade in old games for money or to be used toward other purchases, which cash-strapped fans could appreciate. But the values became a punchline. A brand new game, which cost $60, might fetch $30 at your local GameStop. Older games would return a few bucks at most. Social media is full of jokes about how you can trade GameStop’s stock back to the retailer for a fraction of the price. The company also became known for questionable practices such as selling opened copies of games as if they were new. Sometimes, customers would take home a “new” game only to discover that someone else’s save file was already on the cartridge. Many video game fans grew tired of the way GameStop treated staff and the way those employees had to act with customers. Worker performance was tied to the number of game pre-orders and rewards cards they sold, which led to constant hawking. It was impossible to call or visit a GameStop store without being pushed to pre-order whatever games were coming out next. In 2017, GameStop made headlines for its controversial Circle of Life program, which essentially punished employees for selling new instead of pre-owned games. As a result, some staff said they would lie to customers about whether they had new copies in stock. Video game publishers have little love for GameStop, either. When customers bought pre-owned games, the people who actually made those games didn’t see a dime, which led companies like Electronic Arts Inc. to pioneer strategies to get people to buy new copies. The publisher decided to put a one-time-use code in each copy of some games, rewarding whoever got to it first -- and punishing the secondhand market. So, for many gamers, seeing GameStop as the butt of a joke on Wall Street is a dose of schadenfreude. Such widespread disdain for the retailer from all corners of the gaming industry has probably helped fuel the frenzy behind GameStop on Reddit. The stock surge makes no sense. GameStop has struggled as many former customers switched to buying digital copies directly on their consoles. The coronavirus pandemic, which has kept most people out of the malls where many GameStops operate, exacerbated the company’s decline, and it reported sales fell 30% in the quarter ended Oct. 31. The r/WallStreetBets campaign shows that most investors driving up the shares are motivated by a populist desire to take down hedge funds with big short positions. But the whole play has also been egged on by internet jokes, or memes. And to gamers, there are few bigger memes than GameStop. “If this was just Google or something, no one would care that much,” said Allen, a r/WallStreetBets poster who asked only to be identified by his first name, in a phone interview. “But the fact that it’s GameStop, that we’re going to take on a hedge fund because they shorted GameStop, it’s funny. There are great memes to be made out of it.” Allen said he now has over 1,000 shares in the retailer, which he bought a few months ago for less than $20. He said he sees this as an opportunity for GameStop to become a better corporation without the pressure from Wall Street short sellers. “If this company is going to go out of business, they deserve to go out of business on their own terms,” Allen said. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE

To: ggersh who wrote (167702)	1/27/2021 8:42:43 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217757

Re <<People are watching>> ... and gold is worth zero, but valued at 11 trillion bloomberg.com What’s the $23 Billion GameStop Really Worth? Maybe $2 Billion Olga Kharif 28 January 2021, 02:33 GMT+8 With GameStop Corp. soaring once again to record highs on Wednesday, sending its market value above $23 billion, the ailing video-game retailer is now worth nearly as much as Delta Air Lines Inc. and more than Kellogg Co. This is a company that some analysts essentially wrote off a year ago, that has been shuttering hundreds of stores, that has struggled for years to regain relevance in the era of Amazon.com Inc. But GameStop’s shares are no longer rooted in business reality after Reddit fans propelled them to stratospheric highs -- part of a now well-documented phenomenon that has spread to AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. GameStop is currently worth more than almost 90% of U.S. companies in the Russell 3000. And it trades for about 67 times its book value, which would put it in 34th place in the index -- just behind Zoom Video Communications Inc. Read more: Reddit-fueled day traders trigger volatility halts So what is GameStop really worth, if we lived in a world where the Redditors had never gone down this path? Probably around $2 billion. At around $326, the share price is more than 10 times higher than it would be based on the company’s fundamentals. Analysts typically look at cash flow, growth and debt to figure out target prices. Of course, that system hasn’t worked as well in the current era, but it still provides a sense of what GameStop might be worth in a parallel universe -- or in this universe, once the hysteria subsides. “I think it’s fair to say that the market is completely disconnected from GameStop fundamentals here,” said Matthew Kanterman, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. GameStop, based in Grapevine, Texas, has declined to comment on its stock runup. The company has long been struggling, even after varied attempts to revamp its business, including a failed push into offering mobile phones. New game consoles introduced in the fall provided a jolt to sales, but revenue is still projected to decline by 18% this fiscal year. While next year should be better -- with single-digit sales growth, according to Bloomberg estimates -- it will continue to burn cash. The company has been scaling down its operations and -- like most brick-and-mortar retailers -- is still reeling from Covid-19. In the long run, it faces a shift to online games that will be difficult for a sprawling physical chain to adapt to. “Fundamentals are about companies that eventually return the cash to shareholders, usually in terms of dividends, but there’s no way that GameStop is going to do that,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, J Capital Research co-founder. Turnaround PlanActivist investor Ryan Cohen, who made a fortune running Chewy.com, is seen as a potential savior of GameStop. He wants to expand GameStop’s product line to be more like Amazon’s. But a turnaround would take time and is by no means certain to succeed. “I’m skeptical -- even now with the Cohen regime -- that they can meaningfully steer the ship out of this,” Kanterman said. “They have tried and failed multiple times in the past to diversify away from physical-games retail -- mobile phones, collectibles, making and publishing their own video games -- only to eventually exit all of those businesses in turn.” GameStop said during its last quarterly call that it would announce its strategy in January. And Cohen recently joined the retailer’s board, offering fresh hope. But without knowing what the plan is, it’s hard to make firm assessments. “I have a $16 price target based on $1 of earnings power,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. “It’s possible that Ryan Cohen could come up with a plan that would allow me to raise my estimates, but I haven’t seen it yet, so am keeping my target till he shows me a path to greater profits.” — With assistance by Bailey Lipschultz, and Tom Contiliano Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE