Will GameStop acquire eBay?

Why we chose it

Three weeks ago this was absurd; now it's an SEC filing. Ryan Cohen delivered a $125-a-share, $56 billion cash-and-stock proposal to eBay's board on 3 May — GameStop having quietly built a 5% economic stake first — and on 12 May eBay rejected it as "neither credible nor attractive," which is board-speak for both "no" and "who do you think you are." The 14 cents, on over a million in volume, is the market believing the second half more than the first.

The case for: Cohen doesn't retreat, he's sitting on the meme-run cash pile and hunting for something to do with it, and he's floated issuing stock to fund the rest. The case against is the arithmetic — a mall retailer swallowing the original internet garage sale needs financing nobody has shown, past a hostile board and an antitrust review, all before the market's 31 December deadline. Between hostile-bid theatre and a closed acquisition sits most of that 86 cents. A lottery ticket on a billionaire's whim, with paperwork.