GameStop Shares Rise Ahead Of Sept. 8 Earnings As EBay Stake Reshapes Company’s Bottom Line

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Shares of GameStop Corp. climbed Thursday morning, trading at $19.15, up 17 cents, or 0.90%, as of 10:02 a.m. ET, as investors continued positioning ahead of the video game retailer’s full second-quarter earnings report, scheduled for after market close on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

The stock’s modest gain comes as GameStop’s business increasingly reflects the impact of its sizable investment portfolio, particularly a large stake in eBay, rather than the performance of its traditional video game and collectibles retail operations, which have continued to shrink.

GameStop released preliminary second-quarter results on Aug. 31, disclosing that it expects quarterly net income of between $290 million and $310 million, nearly double the $168.6 million the company reported during the same period a year earlier. The stronger bottom line, however, is not being driven by a rebound in core sales. Instead, GameStop said quarterly revenue is expected to fall to between $780 million and $800 million, down from $972.2 million a year earlier, with the sales decline attributed to the prior year’s launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, planned store closures, and the divestiture of the company’s operations in France.

The gap between GameStop’s shrinking sales and its rising net income has been driven largely by investment gains tied to the company’s eBay position. GameStop said its quarterly net income figure includes approximately $238 million in net gains related to its eBay derivative asset and equity investment. As of Aug. 1, GameStop held roughly 43.4 million shares of eBay common stock, with a fair value of approximately $4.947 billion.

During the quarter, GameStop converted a previously disclosed derivative position related to eBay into a direct equity investment, a move that also affected the company’s overall liquidity profile. GameStop said its cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities are expected to range between $5.05 billion and $5.07 billion, down from $8.69 billion at the close of the prior year’s second quarter, reflecting the conversion of that derivative position into direct eBay shares.

GameStop’s broader strategy toward eBay has continued to take shape throughout the year. On May 3, the company made a non-binding proposal to acquire the remaining shares of eBay for $125 per share in a combination of cash and GameStop stock. That proposed transaction cleared a key regulatory hurdle when the required Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period was satisfied on June 3, allowing for potential optional physical settlement of GameStop’s existing options positions tied to eBay shares. GameStop directly owns 4,343,725 eBay shares outright, and separately holds put and call option pairs providing economic exposure to an additional 39,046,658 shares.

Shareholders have already taken formal steps to support GameStop’s broader strategic ambitions involving eBay. At the company’s 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, shareholders approved an amendment to GameStop’s certificate of incorporation increasing the number of authorized shares of Class A common stock, a change supported by 68.7% of votes cast. The amendment gives GameStop additional capacity to issue common stock in connection with strategic transactions, including its proposed eBay acquisition, should that deal ultimately move forward.

Alongside its preliminary earnings release, GameStop also announced an amendment to a previously disclosed plan to exchange approximately $1.4 billion in convertible notes for shares of Class A common stock. Under the revised terms, noteholders will receive roughly 55.5 million shares of common stock, representing about 73% of the total consideration, along with approximately $358.4 million in cash, representing the remaining 27%, which GameStop said it expects to fund from cash on hand. The amended exchange is expected to close on or about Sept. 3. The original agreement, announced earlier in the same month, had been structured to be settled entirely in stock, with the total share count determined by GameStop’s average volume-weighted stock price over a 35-day reference period; the amendment terminates that reference period early, fixing the total number of shares to be issued rather than leaving it subject to further market fluctuation.

GameStop shares rose 5% in premarket trading following the announcement of the amended note exchange terms, as investors welcomed the reduced dilution shareholders would face compared with the original all-stock structure. Once completed, the exchange will reduce GameStop’s outstanding long-term debt by roughly $1.4 billion, leaving $1.1 billion of 2030 Notes and $1.7 billion of 2032 Notes outstanding.

GameStop had earlier issued formal fiscal year 2026 guidance projecting adjusted EBITDA above $600 million for the fiscal year ending Jan. 30, 2027, a significant increase from the $345.4 million reported in fiscal 2025. The company’s board also separately approved a request from Chief Executive Ryan Cohen to withdraw a proposed CEO Performance Award from this year’s proxy statement, with Cohen stating he wanted company leadership focused on operating performance and the proposed eBay acquisition rather than on compensation matters.

GameStop’s first-quarter 2026 results, covering the period ended May 2, showed net sales rising 14% year-over-year to $835.3 million, driven by strength in the company’s collectibles business, with net income reaching a record $389.6 million for the quarter.

The stock’s trajectory this year has remained well below its meme-stock-era highs. Shares of the Texas-based retailer, founded in 1984 and known for video games, gaming consoles, accessories and collectibles, famously surged more than 1,600% in January 2021, fueled by a coordinated retail investor push originating on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum. GameStop shares reached a record $120.75 during that period before giving back roughly 85% of those gains in the years since. Despite Thursday’s modest gain and the earlier 2.9% jump following the preliminary earnings release, GameStop stock remains down roughly 8% for 2026 overall.

With GameStop’s full second-quarter results due after market close on Sept. 8, investors and analysts will be watching closely to see whether the company’s expanding investment portfolio, anchored by its eBay position, can continue offsetting the ongoing decline in its core retail business, or whether Wall Street will ultimately demand clearer signs of stabilization in GameStop’s traditional operations regardless of gains generated through its broader investment strategy.