Big billion-dollar funds increased their stakes in GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) during the fourth quarter of 2024, following a third quarter in which it held $4.616 billion in cash and cash equivalents. This comes as recent reports suggest the video game retailer is planning to buy Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.
What Happened: GameStop, which has $4.616 billion in cash and cash equivalents, according to its third quarter 10-Q filing was added to the portfolios of many large funds.
- As of the fourth quarter 13F filings, about 143 million shares of GME valued at $4.5 billion were held by 356 funds.
- UBS Group AG increased its stake in the company by 1635% during the fourth quarter.
- Ken Griffin‘s Citadel Advisors added 52%, whereas BlackRock just added 8%, valuing its total stake in the company at $1.091 billion
- Renaissance Technologies and JPMorgan Chase reduced their stakes by 57% and 56%, respectively.
| Funds | Holdings (as of Sept. 30) | Holdings (as of Dec. 31) | Change (in %) | Value As Of Dec. 31 |
| UBS Group AG | 183,949 | 3,190,980 | 1635% | $100 million |
| Citadel Advisors LLC | 2,400,543 | 3,658,769 | 52% | $114.665 million |
| BlackRock Inc | 32,241,728 | 34,821,144 | 8% | $1.091 billion |
| Morgan Stanley | 1,272,904 | 1,626,720 | 28% | $50.981 million |
| Goldman Sachs Group Inc | 165,434 | 196,818 | 19% | $6.168 million |
| Renaissance Technologies LLC | 1,896,464 | 817,848 | -57% | $25.631 million |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 1,548,192 | 678,433 | -56% | $21.262 million |
Why It Matters: The chairman and CEO of GME, Ryan Cohen sparked controversy following the Feb. 8 X post where he posed with Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR), formerly MicroStrategy’s founder and CEO, Michael Saylor. The following week CNBC reported that GameStop is likely to invest in cryptocurrencies.
Saylor has positioned Strategy as a treasury or a levered play on Bitcoin as it purchases BTC by issuing 0% convertible debt and preferred shares (NASDAQ:STRK). GME’s Cohen is likely to follow in MSTR’s path and possibly purchase other coins too.
Economist Peter Schiff criticized GameStop‘s potential Bitcoin investment as a “Hail Mary” move by a company lacking a “viable business plan”. He argues that Bitcoin is even more overvalued than GameStop stock, and compared the move to Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Price Action: GME rose by 2.62% on Friday and advanced further by 0.26% in the after-hours, whereas the exchange-traded fun tracking Russell 200 index, iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE:IWM) fell 0.075%.
GME shares have fallen 11.94% on a year-to-date basis, whereas it was up by 100.15% over the last year.
The price target of one analyst covering GME, Wedbush, is $10 with an ‘underperform’ rating issued on Sept. 11, 2024. The average of three recent rating changes by the same analyst represents a 65.52% downside for the stock.
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