GameStop Stock Is Spiking Again After GameStop CFO Jim Bell Resigns

Update: GameStop's stock is on the rise once again. Following the news of CFO Jim Bell's impending departure from the company, the company's stock price remain largely unchanged over the course of February 24. However, before market close, it spiked from the mid-$40 range to almost $92--roughly a 100% increase. In after hours trading, those rose even further, and it started out today, February 25, at a whopping $170. That has since decreased to $135 at the time of this writing, but it's still a significant increase over the $40-$50 range that it had settled into for much of this month. Of course, it pales in comparison to the $300+ it was trading at toward the end of January.

Perhaps coincidentally, other stocks that were targeted by Reddit's WallStreetBets subreddit, such as AMC, have also seen a spike over the last day. And for a period of time late on Wednesday, Reddit--the entire site, not just the WSB subreddit--went down. That could be due to a sudden influx in traffic from people seeking out WSB's advice, as there were celebratory messages posted on WSB in reaction to the GameStop share price.

Original story: Jim Bell, who served as the chief financial officer and executive vice president at GameStop has resigned from both roles and will depart on March 26, Gamasutra reports. No reason has been given for his departure.

GameStop announced Bell's departure in a press release, noting that he had seen the company through the trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic. During much of his time at the company, GameStop was carrying out an ongoing transformation plan as it struggled to compete with the dominance of software game sales and online retailers like Amazon.

While the company saw a boost from the release of a new generation of consoles, the increasing focus on diskless consoles bodes poorly for the future of traditional games retailers. The company has now closed hundreds of stores and more dramatic changes are seemingly in store, with ecommerce-favoring investor Ryan Cohen now on the board of directors.

The outgoing CFO also oversaw the company's finances during a Reddit-led stock market upheaval that saw GameStop's stock price rocket to over $400 and then settle back to $50 over the course of one tumultuous week. The company itself was unable to capitalize on the sudden rally due to regulatory concerns.

The press release states that senior vice president and chief accounting officer Diana Jajeh will step up as interim CFO if a permanent hire hasn't been made by the time of Bell's departure on March 26.