Hey Snackers,
It's been a painful week for the nation. In the past week, the US has seen at least seven shootings. Police have taken custody of the suspect in Monday's Colorado grocery store shooting, which left 10 people dead.
Markets ticked down yesterday as Covid cases in Europe continued rising: Germany, France, and Italy have all extended their lockdowns.
Ready gamer one... GameStop just dropped its first earnings report since its big stock pop. ICYMI (unlikely): from December to late January, GameStop shares surged 1,000%. Since their January 27th all-time high, shares have fallen 48% — but are still up nearly 2,000% over the past six months. Without further ado.... here are the numbers for the three months ended January 30:
Less "Blockbuster of video games"... more "Amazon of video games." That's the strategy GameStop is going for in 2021. In 2020, it closed ~700 of its 5K stores. Now, it’s leaning on new leaders to change course:
The past can inform the future... Flashback to the glory days: from August 2009 to October 2010, GameStop pulled in nearly ~$6B in sales and $170M in profit. For fiscal year 2020: GameStop pulled in ~$5B in sales and lost more than ~$215M. Its ecommerce numbers from last quarter are encouraging. But it remains to be seen whether GameStop’s new leaders can restore its financials to glory day status – and to what extent investors will act on those fundamentals.
If the government did a "40 under 40" list... Lina Khan would probably be on it. President Biden just nominated the 32-year-old Columbia law school professor to be one of five commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission. If appointed, she would be the youngest FTC commissioner in history. FTC = the US govt agency that enforces anti-monopoly laws and promotes consumer protection.
Antitrust could get a lot more "anti"... Khan has said that we need "a new vocabulary" for addressing Big Tech's dominance. That could mean championing to expand the scope of antitrust law. She's part of a new movement, sometimes referred to as "Hipster Antitrust" (lol).
Big Tech could have big(ger) problems... There have been many hearings and lawsuits on Big Tech's power over the past few years — but not many consequences. If appointed, Khan would vote on important antitrust and consumer protection decisions. Possibly including: whether to block acquisitions by large companies like Google, break up Instagram and Facebook, or ban Apple from offering its own apps on the App Store. It could take years for major changes to happen, but Khan's appointment poses a fresh challenge for tech cos.
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft
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