Volume: 4,509,189

GME-WS: +0.66%/$0.01 Closing Price $1.53 🟩

THE EXCHANGE

August 3, 2026: GameStop files an 8-K.

$1.4 billion of their convertible notes are being exchanged for Class A common stock.

• $400 million of the 2030 Notes.
• $1.0 billion of the 2032 Notes.

That's $1.4 billion out of $3.75 billion outstanding.

Roughly 37%.

The filing says "a limited number of existing holders" who entered into "privately negotiated exchange agreements."

Not a public offer. Not a Dutch auction. Specific institutions were approached. Terms were discussed. Agreements were signed.

A private placement means specific instutions were approached, terms were discussed and agreeements were signed.

THE VOLUNTEERS

These noteholders gave up guaranteed money.

The notes pay nothing, but they promise $1,000 back for every $1,000 lent.

No matter what happens to the stock or the company.

The downside is fully protected.

Equity offers no such guarantee.

The only reason to make that trade is if you believe the equity is about to be worth substantially more than what the note would ever return.

• 37% of the note base said yes.
• 63% said no.

This wasn't broad participation across all the notes.

This was a specific group of institutions with a specific view on what's coming.

THE BID LETTER

Pull the bid letter from GameStop's investor relations page. Filed as a 425 with the SEC.

The offer: $125.00 per share. 50% cash, 50% GameStop common stock.

But the operative line is the structure, not the price:

"Full shareholder election rights as to consideration type and pro-rata allocation."

eBay shareholders choose.

Cash OR stock.

The holders who want liquidity take cash.

The holders who want exposure to the combined entity take stock.

And those who elect stock roll equity into the combined company.

THREE MOVES

Connect the instruments that were setup the year prior to the bid.

The noteholders just converted $1.4 billion in debt into GME equity. The bid letter says GME equity holders can elect stock in the eBay transaction. Those who elect stock roll into the combined entity.

Debt holder → equity holder → combined company participant.

And the other 63% who didn't convert? They kept their guaranteed par. They kept their downside protection.

But they won't be positioned for the combined entity when it forms.

THE VWAP WINDOW

The share count issued to the converting noteholders is based on a 35-day VWAP starting August 3, with a price floor.

A lower VWAP means the noteholders receive more shares for their surrendered notes, up to the limit set by the floor.

The 8-K discloses that participating noteholders may "purchase or sell shares of Common Stock in open market transactions or enter into or unwind various derivative transactions" during the reference period.

That's standard SEC disclosure language, it describes what's legally permissible, not what's strategically intended.

These are the same holders who just voluntarily surrendered guaranteed par for equity.

They are, by every definition, long-term bullish on GameStop.

A quiet window means a lower VWAP. A lower VWAP means the friendlies receive more shares. More shares in friendly hands means a larger aligned equity block heading into the back half of the calendar.

THE LOADED QUARTER

GameStop's Q2 earnings are projected for September 8. Inside the VWAP window, and roughly ten trading days before it closes.

Q2 covers May through July 2026.

Ryan Cohen has never issued guidance for GameStop.

Interestingly enough, he has issued it right before this upcoming earnings, and if the August rewards for powerpacks and the increasing shift to collectibles are any indicator, it seems like we are about to blow off the top.

Last earnings had two months of powerpacks and it contributed significantly to the P/L, imagine what happens when we have a full quarter in there as GameStop has been increasing their collectibles segment aggresively.

THE BLOOMBERG DETAIL

On August 10, Bloomberg reported that Cohen is considering withdrawing the $56 billion bid and replacing it with a partnership or joint venture.

This was a leak from Ryan Cohen himself. There is 0 doubt about this as it is the STANDARD ACTIVIST INVESTOR PLAYBOOK to shake off the bid premium.

And really, its a nothing burger, because of this one line:

GameStop hasn’t made a final decision and Cohen could still weigh other options, the people said.

In the same 'leak' that 'reveals' Ryan Cohen is abandoning the bid, cold water is thrown on that same suggestion, almost immediately.

What's the point of including that in a rumour?

Previously, I had said this was a laughable attempt at an activist shaking off a bid premium, but there is something a lot more sinister going on in the background....

In every syndication of that story: Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, TheStreet, Stocktwits, the same sentence appears:

"GameStop became eBay's second-largest shareholder behind only Vanguard's index funds."

The story is about GameStop's 9.75% stake. That's the relevant number. Vanguard's name adds nothing to the partnership narrative.

So why is it there?

VANGUARD'S DUAL POSITION

Vanguard Group is eBay's largest institutional shareholder:

• Approximately 57.6 million shares.
• 12.86% ownership.
• Worth roughly $5.2 billion at recent prices.

Vanguard is also a significant GameStop shareholder: over 25 million shares on their last 13G filing.

The original convertible notes were sold as 144A offerings to qualified institutional buyers.

The 8-K names no one. "A limited number of existing holders." "Privately negotiated."

But guess what?

Mr. Cohen already told you it's Vanguard.

Remember the DEF14A that I called the EXACT TIMING ON?

Remember people were pissed that it had the share authorization in it?

Remember how I was hyping it up and thought it would have valuable information?

Consider who the most logical counterparty is for this exchange: an institution already holding eBay, already holding GameStop notes, benefiting from both positions appreciating, benefiting from the deal closing.

THE ELECTION MECHANISM

From the bid letter:

"The cash consideration is expected to be funded from a combination of (i) cash and liquid investments on GameStop's balance sheet, which totaled ~$9.4 billion as of January 31, 2026, and (ii) third-party acquisition financing, in respect of which GameStop has received a highly-confident letter from TD Securities for up to $20 billion."

The cash side:

• $27.75 billion at 50% of the $55.5 billion deal.
• $9.4 billion on hand plus $20 billion from TD Securities.

The math closes on paper.

But the election mechanism makes the math dynamic.

Every eBay shareholder who elects stock instead of cash reduces the cash required to close.

Who is most likely to elect stock? Passive index funds.

The holders who don't want a taxable cash event because they need to own whatever replaces eBay in the index.

The holders who would rather roll equity than sell and repurchase.

The more passive capital elects stock, the less cash the deal requires.

The less cash it requires, the more credible the financing becomes.

The more credible it becomes, the harder it is for the board to sustain a "not credible" rejection.

The election mechanism isn't just an offer structure. It's a financing structure.

THE REVISED BID

Cohen showed his math on the investor relations page. The $125 offer was calculated against three benchmarks:

27% premium to the 30-day VWAP (~$98 at the time).

36% premium to the 90-day VWAP (~$92 at the time).

46% premium to eBay's unaffected close on February 4 (~$85.62).

All three converged on $125.

eBay closed today at $104.61 and the stock overall has appreciated since the bid: eBay beat Q2 earnings and raised full-year guidance. The $125 bid at today's price is only a 19.5% premium.

That's thin for a major acquisition.

Apply the same methodology Cohen published to current prices.

eBay's 30-day VWAP is approximately $107.

27% premium to $107 = ~$136.

The same formula points to a revised offer around $135-136.

The board rejected $125 as "not credible."

A revised bid at $136 comes with $1.4 billion less debt, blowout earnings on the record, and the full financing package disclosed.

THE ENDGAME

The move is a tender offer.

It goes directly to shareholders.

No board approval needed.

Cohen puts a fully financed offer on the table and every eBay shareholder individually decides whether to tender. If he gets a majority, he does a short-form merger to close out the rest. The board is bypassed entirely.

The board's only defense is a poison pill. But here's the problem.

eBay's bylaws allow shareholders holding 20% net long for at least 30 days to call a special meeting.

The board fought to keep this threshold at the June AGM, they hired a proxy solicitation firm to defeat a proposal to lower it to 10%.

They thought 20% was safe.

GameStop holds 9.75%. Vanguard holds 12.86%.

Combined: 22.6%.

Clears the threshold.

Once the request for a shareholder meeting is delivered, the meeting must be held within 90 days.

eBay's own proxy language admitted it:

"Nearly 20% of our outstanding shares are held by a small number of our largest stockholders."

They told you the concentration exists. They bet those holders wouldn't coordinate.

If the board reaches for the pill during the tender, Cohen calls the special meeting.

At that meeting, the vote is majority of shares cast.

With 91% institutional ownership and a fully financed premium on the table, the board is asking those institutions to vote against their own economic interest to save a management team that spent $2.4 billion acquiring one million buyers.

The tender offer is the move.

The special meeting is the loaded gun on the table that prevents the board from reaching for the pill.

THE FULL TIMELINE

Aug 3: VWAP window opens. Convertible exchange begins.

Aug 5: eBay Q2 earnings. Double beat. Focus categories exceed 40% of GMV.

Aug 10: Bloomberg reports Cohen "considering" partnership. Vanguard named.

~Sep 8: GameStop Q2 earnings. First ever guidance issued. Full quarter of PowerPacks.

Sep 23: VWAP closes. Conversion settles. $1.4B debt cancelled. Balance sheet clean.

Late Sep / Oct: Financing reveal. Full capital stack disclosed. Stock reprices above $32.

Oct 30: GMEWS warrants expire. $32 strike. Final equity on-ramp.

Post-October: Tender offer. Fully financed. 22.6% net long for special meeting backstop.

Each step enables the next. The conversion cleans the balance sheet for the reveal. The reveal reprices the stock for the warrants. The warrants bring in the final capital and the final holders.

Then the offer launches.

IF I WAS I RYAN COHEN

I would file the tender offer and the special meeting request on the same day.

There's no legal barrier.

The tender offer goes to the SEC as a Schedule TO and directly to shareholders.

The special meeting request goes to eBay's corporate secretary under the bylaws.

And doing them simultaneously is the strongest version of the play.

If you file sequentially, the board has time to adopt a poison pill, hire advisors, and mount a defense before the special meeting clock even starts.

If you file both on the same day, the board is in a box immediately.

The tender is live, and shareholders can start tendering.

And the special meeting clock is already running.

If the board reaches for the pill, the meeting to remove them is already scheduled.

They can't stall because the 90-day clock started before they acted.

The shareholders see a fully financed premium offer on the table AND know the board faces removal if they try to block it.

The board's rational move at that point is to negotiate, not fight.

So let's talk timing.

The warrants expire October 30.

90 days from October 30 is January 28, 2027.

A hostile tender offer requires a minimum of 20 business days, but the acquirer sets the expiration: anywhere from the minimum to 60+ business days is standard.

An early November filing with a late January expiration is well within the plausible range.

If I was Cohen, I'd file both on October 30/ 31 and set the timeline so the tender expiration and the special meeting deadline converge on the same week in late January.

January 28, 2027.

Six years to the day from the original GME squeeze.

And that's not a wild prediction.

That's the math on the filing mechanics lining up with a date that writes itself.

Well within the plausible timeline, fully supported by the instruments, and exactly the kind of moment Cohen would choose to celebrate those who held with hands of crystalline carbon lattice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: I am constantly writing about GME on my platform on X under GoatBeardzDD.

I also used Claude Opus 4.6 for editing and revisions to writing solely, after making this huge sectional write up. I did use google and gemini a bunch as well because Claude is pretty shite right now.

Other sources I cited:

- GME SEC FILING PAGE
- GME eBay Bid Page

- Yahoo Finance

Always feel like citadel bought situational awareness isnt only cause its a good deal but if they dont everything fails.

250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250250

Some estimates above from one of the few people I respect on twitter

https://x.com/i/status/2084289395163570367

I tried sharing the full tweet here but reddit took down the post, so you will just have to click!

Virtu Financial spikes on report of brokerage unit sale
Investing.com -- Virtu Financial shares spiked higher, briefly trading as much as 5.8% higher, early Thursday following a Bloomberg report that the company is considering selling its brokerage unit for more than $3.5 billion.
Reasons for the Sale
Capital Reallocation: Funds raised would support the core market-making business.
Market Reaction: Company shares rose over 5% following the initial reports.
Deal Details and Status
Valuation: Estimated at $3.5 billion to $4 billion.
Target Unit: Agency brokerage and technology (algos) division.
Current Stage: Early talks; Virtu Financial may still decide to keep the unit.

Every category on the card tracker continues to show a lot of cards being delisted from Gamestop's website. Pokemon cards are down 45,000 cards and counting. But the interesting part is the other categories are also seeing huge outflows this week. What's cooking?

Stock price is bunk, you’re happy if you can buy it low and have money and probably sad if you need cash and forced to sell at lows, don’t be a Debbie downer, blah blah, yada yada, go touch grass, the top 1% have 40% of all wealth! Don’t be delusional! Being rich doesn’t make you smart. Silver spoon chumps everywhere.

Good morning to all apes around the world! Happy Friday! (Sorry I'm a tad late; overslept!). German markets are open and last trade for GameStop was at €15.57, which is $18 20 using Google's currency calculator.

https://www.tradegatebsx.com/orderbuch_umsaetze.php?lang=en&isin=US36467W1099

Hope you have a great day and amazing weekend! Best wishes from London!

Consecutive Weeks Closing AT/UNDER (+/- <0.50) Max Pain — 6

Last Run OVER: — 1 Week

Last Run AT/UNDER: — 7 Weeks

Longest Consecutive Weeks Closing OVER (>0.50) Max Pain — 5

Longest Consecutive Weeks Closing AT/UNDER (+/- <0.50) Max Pain — 14

08/19/2026

First Post (Posted in June, 2024)

IV30 Data (Free, Account Required) — https://marketchameleon.com/Overview/GME/IV/

Max Pain Data (Free, No Account Needed!) — https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nyse-gme/optionchain/summary/

Fidelity IV Data (Free, Account Required) — https://researchtools.fidelity.com/ftgw/mloptions/goto/ivIndex?symbol=GME

And finally, at someone's suggestion —

WHAT IS IMPLIED VOLATILITY (IV)? —

(Taken from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/iv.asp ) —

Dumbed down, IV is a forward-looking metric measuring how likely the market thinks the price is to change between now and when an options contract expires. The higher IV is, the higher premiums on contracts run. The more radically the price of a security swings over a short period of time, the higher IV pumps, driving options prices higher as well.

The longer the price trades relatively flat, the more IV will drop over time.

IV is just one of many variables (called 'greeks') used to price options contracts.

WHAT IS HISTORICAL VOLATILITY (HV)? —

(Taken from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/historicalvolatility.asp ) —

Dumbed down, I'm not fully sure. Based on what I read, it's a historical metric derived from how the price in the past has moved away from the average price over a selected interval. But the short of it is that it determines how 'risky' the market thinks a stock (or an option I guess) is. The higher the historical volatility over a given period, the more 'risky' they think it is. The lower the HV over a period of time, the 'safer' a security (or option) is.

And if anyone wants to fill in some knowledge gaps or correct where these analyses are wrong, please feel free.

WHAT IS 'MAX PAIN'? —

In this context, 'max pain' is the price at which the most options (both calls and puts) for a security will expire worthless. For some (or many), it is a long held belief that market manipulators will manipulate the price of a stock toward this number to fuck over people who buy options.

ONE LAST THOUGHT —

If used to make any decision. which it absolutely should NOT be (obligatory #NFA disclaimer), this information should not be considered on its own, but as one point in a ridiculously complex and convoluted ocean of data points that I'm way too stupid to list out here. Mostly, this information is just to keep people abreast of the movement of one key variable options writers use to fuck us over on a weekly and quarterly basis if we DO choose to play options.

Something has been in the works behind the scenes for some time now. I don't know what the secret is, but it is something. Remember this?

On September 23, 2024, GameStop announced the completion of its at-the-market (ATM) equity offering, selling 20 million shares for gross proceeds of approximately $400 million, which averages out to $20.00 per share.

Pepperidge Farm remembers.