GME Stock Jumps 4% After-Hours — What’s Driving The Rally?

• The purchase is the largest insider buy in months and follows two smaller board purchases after earnings.
• Cohen last added a million shares in January, in two 500,000-share blocks near $21.
• Retail investors on Stocktwits voiced optimism for the insider purchases and the company’s share buyback plan, pushing the stock higher.

Shares of GameStop (GME) rose 4% after-hours on Thursday after a regulatory filing showed Chairman and Chief Executive Ryan Cohen bought one million shares in the open market.

The stock closed up 2.5% in regular trading and extended gains after-hours.

Cohen’s Stake In GME

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cohen paid a weighted average of $20.3759 a share, or about $20.4 million. Prices ranged from $20.02 to $20.47. Cohen now holds 39,347,842 shares directly in the company.

Overall, his beneficial stake, including warrants, stands at about 43.1 million shares, or roughly 8.5%.

Directors Have Been Buying Too

The purchase is the largest insider buy in months and follows two smaller board purchases after earnings. On September 8, the day GameStop reported results, director Lawrence Cheng bought 55,000 shares at about $18.80, or $1.03 million, through Cheng Capital LLC. A day later, director James Grube bought 10,255 shares at $19.12, or about $196,000.

Cohen last added a million shares in January, in two 500,000-share blocks near $21.

Earnings Lift, Stores Still Shrinking

The share purchases follow a mixed quarter. On September 8, GameStop posted second-quarter operating income of $160.2 million, its strongest second quarter on record. Collectibles sales rose 57% to $356.3 million and made up 45% of revenue. Net sales still fell to $790.2 million from $972.2 million a year earlier, hurt by last year’s Nintendo Switch 2 launch, store closures, and the sale of French operations. The company raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted core profit outlook to more than $650 million.

In early September, GameStop completed an exchange of $1.4 billion of convertible notes for about 55.5 million shares and $358.4 million in cash, reducing long-term debt to roughly $2.8 billion. The company also pointed to a large balance sheet: $5.4 billion in cash, marketable securities, and digital assets, plus an eBay stake of about 43.4 million shares valued at $4.9 billion. The board has a $2 billion buyback in place.

An unsolicited bid for eBay earlier this year was rejected; Cohen later withdrew a large performance award to keep the focus on that effort.

How Did GME Retail Traders React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around GME Stock stayed within the ‘extremely bullish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume was ‘high.’

A Stocktwits user said that the insider share purchases, with the share buyback plan in action, will take the stock higher.

Another cheered GME leadership for putting their skin in the game and contrasted it with eBay management.

GME stock has gained 2% year-to-date. 

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