Ryan Cohen makes the list of Yale’s best and worst CEOs of 2023!
Ryan Cohen of GameStop: Meme stock hype collides with cold hard reality
It has been quite a fall to earth for Ryan Cohen, the meme stock activist investor, since his high-flying days as a meme stock pied piper playing to crowds of bored Reddit day traders during the depths of the pandemic.
Now, Cohen faces the very real specter of GameStop’s demise. Not only are $GameStop (GME.US)$ down 95% since 2021, but the underlying business also continues to deteriorate rapidly amidst three consecutive years of declining revenues and profits due to the general decline of physical software sales.
GameStop’s appointment of none other than Cohen himself as CEO in September 2023inspires little confidence, since, in the words of Wedbush analysts, “the appointment of the controlling shareholder reflects the difficulty GameStop has had in attracting competent executives…we are unaware of any recruiting activity, and can only surmise that the company could not convince any competent replacements to jump onto the sinking ship.”
Nothing seems to have worked for Cohen since he took ownership of GameStop, as Wedbush points out. He recruited several top senior Amazon executives in early 2021, only to fire them months later. Cohen then tried to grow GameStop’s sales, only for sales to continue to plummet. Next, Cohen tried out an NFT Marketplace initiative, which is now flailing and apparently winding down. Then Cohen initiated what Wedbush called “one of the most inane decisions we have ever seen,” by having GameStop authorize him to invest the company’s cash in other stocks as if GameStop were a mutual fund.
Sadly for GameStop, Cohen’s track record as an investor is plainly terrible. He seems to have made his greatest profits through his antics at the now-bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond, and his “sketchy” timing put him into the crosshairs of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation in addition to several shareholder lawsuits for fraud and a separate case accusing him of “short swing profit” in federal court. Cohen’s lawyers deny any wrongdoing.
Perhaps Cohen can meme-stock GameStop’s way out of its fight to survive once more, but with all his miscues and baggage piling up, the pied piper’s magic seems to be wearing thin.
Now, Cohen faces the very real specter of GameStop’s demise. Not only are $GameStop (GME.US)$ down 95% since 2021, but the underlying business also continues to deteriorate rapidly amidst three consecutive years of declining revenues and profits due to the general decline of physical software sales.
GameStop’s appointment of none other than Cohen himself as CEO in September 2023inspires little confidence, since, in the words of Wedbush analysts, “the appointment of the controlling shareholder reflects the difficulty GameStop has had in attracting competent executives…we are unaware of any recruiting activity, and can only surmise that the company could not convince any competent replacements to jump onto the sinking ship.”
Nothing seems to have worked for Cohen since he took ownership of GameStop, as Wedbush points out. He recruited several top senior Amazon executives in early 2021, only to fire them months later. Cohen then tried to grow GameStop’s sales, only for sales to continue to plummet. Next, Cohen tried out an NFT Marketplace initiative, which is now flailing and apparently winding down. Then Cohen initiated what Wedbush called “one of the most inane decisions we have ever seen,” by having GameStop authorize him to invest the company’s cash in other stocks as if GameStop were a mutual fund.
Sadly for GameStop, Cohen’s track record as an investor is plainly terrible. He seems to have made his greatest profits through his antics at the now-bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond, and his “sketchy” timing put him into the crosshairs of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation in addition to several shareholder lawsuits for fraud and a separate case accusing him of “short swing profit” in federal court. Cohen’s lawyers deny any wrongdoing.
Perhaps Cohen can meme-stock GameStop’s way out of its fight to survive once more, but with all his miscues and baggage piling up, the pied piper’s magic seems to be wearing thin.
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5060 : moomoo sold millions of ious.
Goldminter : Perfect wallst owned AI accounts to be used to say the most blatant gas lighting and non logical analysis.
It’s getting close now. Liquidity is gone