Wall Street Lunch: GameStop's CEO Bets On $100B Dream
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Wall Street Breakfast5.74M FollowersSubscribe5ShareSaveCommentsSummaryGameStop (GME) CEO Ryan Cohen’s compensation is now entirely performance-based, with options vesting only if GME achieves aggressive market cap and EBITDA milestones.Warner Bros. Discovery’s board rejected Paramount Skydance’s revised bid, favoring a Netflix partnership and citing valuation and risk concerns.Evercore ISI says Apple (AAPL) remains its top hardware pick, pointing to steady iPhone strength and potential upside from an AI-powered Siri upgrade.New research shows GIF-based sentiment predicts short-term S&P 500 reversals, especially in small caps and high-volatility segments. RiverNorthPhotography/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Listen below or on the go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Ryan Cohen only gets paid if GameStop reaches meme-era market cap. (0:15) Warner’s board hits Paramount with the Heisman. (1:28) Job openings at lowest level since ’24. (2:13) This is an abridged transcript of the podcast: Our top story so far, GameStop’s CEO is making a moonshot bet on a return to meme-era valuations. GameStop (GME) announced that its board has approved a long-term, performance-based stock option award for chief executive Ryan Cohen, with no guaranteed compensation. The package only pays out if the company hits a series of aggressive market value and profit targets. The award covers options on 171.5M GameStop shares at an exercise price of $20.66, split into nine tranches tied to market cap and cumulative performance EBITDA. The stock trades around $21.75 today. And the milestones? They start at a $20B market cap and $2B in cumulative EBITDA and scale up in 10% increments. Full vesting requires GameStop to reach a $100B market cap and $10B in cumulative EBITDA, numbers that would eclipse even the peak of the meme-stock frenzy. For context, GameStop's current market value is $9.3B. Its all-time high was $33.7B during the 2021 short squeeze. Also in the salary sphere, new Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) CEO Greg Abel will receive an annual cash salary of $25M, effective January 1, succeeding Warren Buffett. That’s a major jump from Buffett’s longtime compensation - a $100,000 base salary and just over $305,000 in additional pay. Among active stocks, that’s all, folks - at least as far as Warner Bros. Discovery’s board is concerned. The board unanimously rejected Paramount Skydance’s (PSKY) amended tender offer, saying it still undervalues the company, leans too heavily on debt, and leaves shareholders exposed if the deal falls through. WBD reiterated its support for the Netflix (NFLX) tie-up and urged investors to reject Paramount’s bid. D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) is gaining attention after agreeing to buy Quantum Circuits for $550M - a mix of stock and cash. The deal pairs D-Wave’s scalable superconducting control tech with Quantum Circuits’ error-corrected gate-model approach. And Evercore ISI says Apple (AAPL) remains its top hardware pick, pointing to steady iPhone strength and potential upside from an AI-powered Siri upgrade. On the economic front, ahead of Friday’s official jobs report, ADP said private-sector employment rose by 41K in December, rebounding from a 29K drop in November but missing the +47K consensus. In addition, the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed openings fell to 7.146M in November, well below the consensus of 7.648M and the lowest level since 2024. In other news of note, what price memory? You heard on today’s Wall Street Breakfast about the rally in memory chip stocks as prices climb. Now Samsung (SSNLF) president and head of global marketing Wonjin Lee is echoing concerns that rising costs are reaching the point where they’ll hit everyone in the supply chain. “There are going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it’s going to affect everyone,” Lee told Bloomberg at CES. “Prices are going up even as we speak. Obviously, we don’t want to convey that burden to the consumers, but we’re going to be at a point where we have to actually consider repricing our products.” And in the Wall Street Research Corner, you say “GIF,” I say “JIF,” but what do they say about where stocks are heading? A new academic paper introduces a sentiment gauge called “GIFsentiment,” built from millions of GIF posts on Stocktwits. The researchers find that GIF sentiment is positively tied to same-day S&P 500 returns but negatively predicts returns over the following month. They argue that GIFs, with motion and sequential images, act like mini stories about past events and future forecasts, making them especially engaging as expressions of market mood. Crucially, GIFsentiment outperforms traditional sentiment measures - including text-based analysis and the Baker-Wurgler sentiment index - when it comes to predicting reversals. The effect is strongest in small caps and high-volatility portfolios, the parts of the market most vulnerable to investor bias.Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.This article was written byWall Street Breakfast5.74M FollowersSubscribeWall Street Breakfast, Seeking Alpha's flagship daily business newsletter, is a one-page summary that gives you a rapid overview of the day's key financial news. 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