'I will never cover GameStop stock ever again': top analyst

Brian Sozzi
·Executive Editor
3 min read
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Loop Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba was among the first analysts on Wall Street to drop coverage of GameStop in February as the rise of meme traders overran the stock and sent it to dizzying new heights for no real fundamental reason.

But despite a new management team and board arriving to GameStop in recent weeks, don't look for Chukumba to be re-launching coverage anytime soon.

"I will never cover GameStop ever again, there is just no point," Chukumba said on Yahoo Finance Live. "Look the stock is down from $483 to I guess $200. I still don't think it's worth anything even remotely close to that."

It will be interesting to see if other sell-side analysts follow Chukumba's lead on GameStop, refusing to relaunch coverage even as new management eventually lays out a turnaround plan. On paper, the resumés of GameStop's new leaders suggest there is a tiny shot of successfully evolving the company.

Matt Furlong officially took over as GameStop's CEO on June 21.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Furlong had spent eight years and eight months at tech beast Amazon. He joined in October 2012 from Procter & Gamble as a senior manager of vendor development. Furlong had spent the last two years leading Amazon's Australian business.

Some 11 days into the job, Furlong sent GameStop's long-time communications person packing. Other changes are likely coming in the months ahead.

Serving as Robin to Furlong's Batman, Mike Recupero was announced as the company's next CFO. Recupero begins at GameStop on July 21. Similar to many other new GameStop executive hires, Recupero was recruited from Amazon.

Recupero had spent the last 17 years with Amazon, rising the ranks through the e-commerce giant's finance functions, per his LinkedIn profile. Most recently, Recupero held the CFO position of Amazon's North America consumer business.

The latest Amazon defectors will join several others recruited by GameStop from the tenure of Jeff Bezos' CEO rule (which ends on Monday).

Oddly, GameStop's stock has plunged more than 20% over the past month as the new slate of leaders get installed into the company.

Says Chukumba of the hires, "The doctor's prescription doesn't match the disease. Amazon is a great e-commerce retailer, there is no question about that. But GameStop's primary problem is that more and more gamers are downloading video games. So you can have a much better website but it's really not going to make any difference. It's like going to the doctor and saying doctor, I have got stage four lung cancer and he gives you a prescription for erectile dysfunction. It just doesn't make a whole [lot] of sense."

Chukumba's outlook on Amazon is one thing that remains upbeat. Chukumba rates the stock at a Buy with a $3,775 price target.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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