Shares of GameStop fell sharply Thursday after the company fired CEO Matthew Furlong, the former Amazon executive who was brought in two years ago to turn the struggling video game retailer around.
The company based in Grapevine, Texas, gave no reason for the dismissal and named Ryan Cohen, the company’s biggest investor, as executive chairman. Cohen sent a cryptic tweet that read “Not for long” around the time the company announced Furlong’s firing.
GameStop said Cohen will oversee investment and management for the company.
Wall Street exits tame bear market
While it seemed scary and interminable, Wall Street’s bear market last year was meeker than most.
After the S&P 500 on Thursday closed at a level more than 20% above where it was in mid-October, Wall Street can give official dates for the birth and death of its last bear market, which is what traders call a long decline of at least 20% for the S&P 500. It started on Jan. 3, 2022, when the S&P 500 set a record high, and ended on Oct. 12, when it bottomed out 25.4% lower.
Worries about the highest inflation in generations drove the drop. More precisely, it was worries about what the Federal Reserve would do to combat high inflation. The Fed furiously jacked rates up to their highest level since 2007, up from virtually zero in about a year. The aim of high interest rates is to lower inflation by slowing the entire economy and dragging down prices for stocks, bonds and other investments.