A Tweet Pic of an Ice Cream Cone Could be Behind GameStop's Latest Surge

A tweet featuring a McDonald's ice cream cone could be behind the latest GameStop rally, according to some Internet users. Ryan Cohen, a co-founder of pet brand Chewy, tweeted a photo of the frozen snack alongside a frog emoji just a few hours before GameStop rallied over 88 percent on Wednesday.

But what does Cohen's cryptic tweet mean? And how could an image of a McDonald's ice cream cone send GameStop into another huge rally? It could all be down to Cohen's connection with GameStop.

In the early afternoon of Feb. 24, Ryan Cohen sent out an obscure tweet. Featuring a McDonald's ice cream cone and accompanied by a frog emoji, Internet detectives immediately set about trying to decode the tweet.

And most people seem to think that it has something to do with the massive rally that GameStop saw just hours after the tweet went public. One Twitter user speculated that the ice cream cone could be a reference to the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), which many investors use as a buy or sell signal.

"People that don't know about investing stuff, MACD is an indicator of trends, and MACD for $GME looks froggy (in this graph, purple about to cross orange)," the user wrote.

Another user speculated: "Ice cream has 8 letters, GameStop has 8 letters. That's a short McDonald's cone. McDonald's ice cream machines are always broken. Broken has 6 letters. There is only 1 cone there. 6 + 1 is 7. Squeeze has 7 letters. GameStop short squeeze confirmed."

While the exact message being Cohen's tweet is unknown, most people seem to think that it has something to do with GameStop. But why are people so set on connecting Cohen with GameStop? As it turns out that GameStop and Ryan Cohen have a history.

In September 2020, Ryan Cohen acquired a 9.8 percent stake in GameStop to modernize the company. Bloomberg reported that Cohen pitched that GameStop should start selling a wider range of gaming merchandise and services online. He also wants to ship those products to consumers quickly, replicating one of Amazon's main appeals. Cohen has also proposed allowing customers to send their used games to GameStop rather than going to a physical store to sell them.

Later, in November, Cohen wrote an open letter to GameStop shareholders that criticized the company's leadership. Among those in Cohen's sights were CFO Jim Bell and CEO George Sherman.

"Through our private conversations, we have explained to Mr. Sherman and the Board that GameStop has the ability to pivot toward becoming a technology-driven business that excels in the gaming and digital experience worlds," Cohen wrote in the letter. "But this pivot requires the type of strategic vision that has not yet taken hold in the c-suite or boardroom."

At the start of 2021, Cohen was added to GameStop's board of directors. And, earlier this week, GameStop announced that Chief Financial Officer Jim Bel would be resigning. According to a press release, the move was "to help accelerate GameStop's transformation." Many have speculated that Cohen could be the man for the job.