GameStop released its first earnings report on Tuesday since it became the subject of international attention during a Reddit-fueled rally and named Jenna Owens, chief executive of Amazon and Google as the its new chief operating officer.
The company’s sales and profit figures were slightly lower than analysts had expected and its shares, which had fallen 6.5% during the day, gained 8% in after-hours trading before more than 15% down.
For the fourth quarter of 2020 GameStop’s net sales were $ 2.12bn compared to $ 2.19bn in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2019. Net revenue was $ 80.5m, both figures lower than forecast the analysts.
Between December and the end of January shares in the troubled video game vendor had burned up to 1,700% as an army of small investors who had swarmed around the WallStreetBets Reddit forum accumulated on the company.
Investors had bet that Wall Street investors had outpaced themselves promising that the price of shares would fall and that his discount fortunes would turn around after Ryan Cohen – founder Chewy, the online pet supply store – bet to buy in the company and enter its board.
The dramatic price increase in GameStop and so-called meme stocks has led to conference searches about the markets and the Robinhood trading app.
Shares that were as low as $ 13 in December peaked at $ 347 on January 27 before falling again in February and rallying again in March. On Tuesday GameStop told investors the share price was $ 181, valuing the company at $ 12.7bn.
Prior to their release, GameStop announced the resignation of its chief messenger officer, Frank Hamlin, the latest in a series of releases since Cohen joined the board.
After the results came to an early conclusion, without the usual question and answer session from CEO George Sherman, some on Reddit complained about the abstract call. “Yeah, that call was awful. No questions asked ?? After the most volatile thing we’ve seen in the stock market … maybe ever? That was discouraging, ”wrote one Redditor.
“Guys are not changing anything after this report. We knew nothing had changed. Just chill the fuck out, ”another man posted.