GameStop Stock Ticks Higher as Ryan Cohen Presses Aggressively On With Rejected $125-a-Share eBay Bid

GameStop shares rose 0.83% Monday morning, trading at $21.86, as investors continued to weigh the video game retailer's unusual pivot toward e-commerce ambitions, highlighted by Chief Executive Ryan Cohen's continued pursuit of an unsolicited $125-per-share acquisition offer for eBay that the online marketplace's board has already publicly rejected.

Monday's modest gain came after a volatile stretch for GameStop shares, which remain closer to their 52-week low of $19.93 than their high of $28.10. The stock has traded within a range of roughly $21.66 to $22.02 over the past several sessions, moving on relatively light volume compared with the company's average daily trading activity of around 4 million shares.

Much of the recent movement in GameStop's stock has centered on the company's continued pursuit of eBay. On May 3, GameStop delivered a non-binding proposal to eBay's board of directors to acquire all outstanding shares it does not already own for $125 apiece, to be paid through a combination of cash and GameStop common stock, a deal reportedly valued at approximately $55.5 billion. Barchart reported that GameStop's proposal followed the company's earlier surprise announcement of interest in eBay, part of a broader strategy under Cohen to deploy the retailer's substantial cash position toward transformative acquisitions well outside its traditional video game business. eBay's board has already rejected the unsolicited offer, though Cohen has indicated plans to appeal directly to eBay shareholders in an effort to keep the pursuit alive, according to Yahoo Finance.

To support that continued push, GameStop stockholders approved a series of proposals at the company's 2026 Annual Meeting, held July 7, including an amendment increasing the number of authorized shares of Class A common stock to 2.5 billion. The amendment passed with 68.7% of votes cast, according to a company statement, providing GameStop with additional flexibility to issue stock in connection with major strategic transactions, including a potential acquisition of eBay. Stockholders also re-elected all five director nominees at the meeting, with Cohen himself receiving the highest share of favorable votes among the nominees, and approved both an advisory vote on executive compensation and the ratification of the company's independent auditor.

GameStop's position in eBay itself remains structured through a combination of direct share ownership and derivative contracts. The company directly owns roughly 4.3 million shares of eBay common stock and has entered into put/call option transactions providing economic exposure to an additional 39 million shares, agreements set to expire in February 2028. After GameStop satisfied a Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act condition on June 3, those option positions became eligible for physical settlement rather than remaining limited to cash settlement, though GameStop does not hold voting or dispositive power over the underlying shares unless and until that physical settlement actually occurs. According to CoinCentral, the combined direct and derivative positions give GameStop economic exposure to roughly 9.8% of eBay.

The July 7 annual meeting also resolved a separate point of controversy that had complicated GameStop's broader corporate narrative in recent weeks. Ahead of the meeting, Cohen withdrew a proposed shareholder vote on his own performance-based pay package, an arrangement that involved 171.5 million stock options structured across nine tranches tied to market capitalization and EBITDA milestones, with a theoretical maximum payout that could have approached $35 billion if every target were met. The proposal had drawn scrutiny in part because critics argued that completing the eBay acquisition could itself help push GameStop toward the market cap and profitability thresholds required to unlock a portion of that reward, creating what some viewed as a potential conflict of interest tied directly to Cohen's pursuit of the deal. A shareholder lawsuit had also sought to delay the July 7 vote on the compensation package entirely, accusing GameStop of a "bait-and-switch" through changed voting rules and an allegedly misleading proxy statement. By withdrawing the compensation proposal ahead of the vote, Cohen removed that specific controversy from consideration at the meeting.

Alongside its regulatory filings reaffirming the eBay pursuit, GameStop also raised its financial outlook for the year, projecting adjusted EBITDA above $600 million for fiscal 2026, nearly double the $345.4 million the company reported in fiscal 2025. That improved guidance came on the heels of a strong first-quarter report, in which GameStop posted net sales of $835.3 million, up 14% year over year from $732.4 million in the prior-year period, while selling, general and administrative expenses declined to $201.6 million from $228.1 million. The combination pushed operating income to a record first-quarter level of $143.3 million, with net income climbing to $389.6 million from $44.8 million a year earlier and adjusted earnings per share improving to 30 cents from 9 cents. GameStop's balance sheet remained a particular point of strength, with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities totaling approximately $8.4 billion and total liquidity near $9.7 billion, positioning the company well to fund a major acquisition should the eBay pursuit ultimately advance.

GameStop has also continued expanding beyond its traditional video game retail business in other ways, launching Power Packs, a digital trading card platform aimed at building out its presence in the broader collectibles market, and approving a new $2 billion share repurchase program extending through 2029. According to Yahoo Finance, collectibles have grown to represent 41.8% of GameStop's first-quarter revenue, reflecting the company's continued shift away from its historical reliance on physical video game sales, a trend reinforced by Sony's recent announcement that it plans to end production of physical PlayStation game discs by 2028.

Despite the improved financial results and the strategic ambition behind the eBay pursuit, Wall Street analysts have remained broadly skeptical of GameStop's current valuation. The average analyst price target on the stock stands at $13.50, according to Barchart, implying substantial downside of more than 37% from recent trading levels, with Wedbush among the firms maintaining a particularly cautious stance on the shares. Traders Union analyst Viktoras Karapetjanc characterized the company's authorized share increase as a fundamental shift that expands GameStop's flexibility for major deals while simultaneously raising dilution risk for existing shareholders, noting persistent bearish technical momentum in the stock following recent support-level breakdowns. "Unless we see a decisive move above resistance, I expect sellers to stay in control in the short term," Karapetjanc said, pointing to the $22.31 level on the Ichimoku Kijun indicator as a key technical threshold that would need to be cleared for any sustained recovery in the shares.

GameStop is scheduled to report its next quarterly earnings on September 9, a date investors are likely to watch closely for further updates on both the company's core retail performance and the ongoing status of its pursuit of eBay, a deal that remains far from certain given the target company's public rejection of the initial offer and the substantial scale of the transaction relative to GameStop's own market capitalization.