GameStop Soars as Ryan Cohen Doubles Down

GameStop ( (GME) ) has risen by 8.96%. Read on to learn why.

GameStop shares climbed 8.96% over the past week as investors looked past another wave of U.S. store closures and focused instead on CEO Ryan Cohen’s growing commitment to the company. While the retailer is shutting roughly 470 locations this month — bringing total closures to around 1,000 over two years and leaving it with fewer than 2,000 stores from a peak of more than 6,000 — the market appears to be betting that a leaner footprint and a stronger balance sheet can support a new phase in the company’s evolution.

The catalyst for the latest move was Cohen’s decision to buy an additional 500,000 GameStop shares at an average price of $21.12, lifting his stake to about 9.2%, or more than 41.5 million shares including warrants. That purchase, alongside a proposed, highly ambitious option package that only pays out if GameStop hits aggressive long-term targets — including market capitalization milestones up to $100 billion and multi‑billion‑dollar EBITDA goals — has been read as a powerful vote of confidence from the executive who first turned GameStop into a meme‑era turnaround story.

Fundamentally, GameStop is in a far better financial position than it was before the 2020 short squeeze, boasting billions in cash, minimal debt and a return to profitability, even though its core retail business remains under pressure and its future business model is still unclear. Analysts remain cautious, with TipRanks’ AI rating the stock Neutral and seeing only modest upside from here. For traders, the 8.96% weekly gain underscores how sensitive GameStop’s share price remains to management moves and shifting sentiment, rather than to traditional retail metrics alone.