Ryan Cohen isn’t giving up on GameStop. If anything, he’s diving deeper into the retailer.
On Tuesday, Cohen revealed he had bought another 100,000 shares of the meme stock, bringing his ownership stake to 11.9%. Investors celebrated the news Wednesday, with the company’s stock price jumping more than 12% in morning trading.
In the past five days, GameStop shares have soared 61%.
Cohen bought the shares via his RC Ventures firm— and boasted about the purchase on Twitter, saying “I put my money where my mouth is”.
GameStop reported disappointing fourth-quarter earnings last week, reporting a net loss of $147.5 million, or $1.94 per share, compared to a profit of $80.5 million (or $1.19 per share) the previous year.
Cohen, who co-founded pet supply retailer Chewy.com and is chairman of GameStop’s board, has vowed to transform the company into a successful e-commerce venture, has come under fire for not announcing a substantial turnaround plan more than a year after taking control of the company. The company has, however, said it plans to launch an NFT marketplace by the end of the second quarter.
GameStop, of course, was the original meme stock and remains popular with members of Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets community. Shares at the start of 2021 traded for less than $20, eventually spiking as high as $344. (Since the beginning of the rally, share prices have increased over 500% and returned the company to the Coins2Day 500.)
The renewed frenzy over GameStop has given a boost to other early meme stocks as well Wednesday. AMC was up more than 20% as of 10:45 a.m. ET and Tesla was up 13%.
GameStop isn’t Cohen’s only interest. Two weeks ago, he revealed a $150 million stake in Bed Bath & Beyond, telling the company’s board it should consider a sale of the company.
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