GameStop (GME) has an enemy in Jim Cramer, who has been arguing with the r/WallStreetBets community over their seemingly endless alliance to the company.
The CNBC commentator and founder of TheStreet has also beefed with social media users on his Twitter account over his GameStop takes.
Cramer isn't just battling enthusiasts who believe in the company's fundamentals, however. He is battling an entire online community that wants to squeeze short sellers out of the game.
Short sellers have gotten a bad reputation among the denizens of Reddit's r/WallStreetBets message board and much of the group's energy, and money, has gone into making them pay by propping up companies with questionable financials like GameStop and movie theater company AMC Entertainment (AMC).
GameStop has been able to leverage the influx of cash it has received from meme stock investors to shore up its balance sheet.
But that doesn't impress Cramer. "GameStop is a $10 billion nothing company," Cramer said on CNBC Wednesday.
GameStop Is Climbing Up the Charts
GameStop shares have jumped more than 25% over the past two days after chairman Ryan Cohen raised his stake in the company, purchasing another 100,000 shares of the company through his investment firm RC Ventures.
Cohen now owns a total of 9.1 million shares of GameStop, increasing his stake to 11.9%.
"He comes in just when I think the apes are desperate. He's the Jane Goodall of the stock apes," Cramer said, using the WallStreetBets community's own term for themselves. "I want a plan, other than just buying stock."
Cramer isn't ready to ease up on his criticism of the company as he still believes that the in-store gaming retail model isn't viable going forward. He will continue to be bearish on the company until it lays out a plan to pivot its business model.
"The numbers weren't that great for GameStop. We still don't understand what he (Cohen) intends to do. Once he lays that out I think we can make a judgment," Cramer said.
But he does acknowledge that the company has some time to turn it around. "There is no urgency because the balance sheets are good."
Gamestop's Transition to Tech
The Grapevine, Texas, company posted an adjusted net loss of $141 million, or $1.86 a share for the quarter ended January 29.
Sales rose 6% to $2.25 billion from $2.12 billion in the same period a year ago.
It now has plans to launch its nonfungible token or NFT marketplace by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2022 as it hopes to transition into a tech company.
"We have learned from the mistakes of the past decade when GameStop failed to adapt to the future of gaming. It is important to stress that GameStop had become such a cyclical business and so capital starved that we have had to rebuild it from within," Chief Executive Matt Furlong said during the company's earnings call on March 17.
GameStop has entered into a partnership with Immutable X to support the development of its NFT marketplace and provide up to $150 million in IMX tokens, the company said.
