On Wednesday post market close, video game retailer and meme stock GameStop Corp (US:GME) reported third quarter results to investors.

Net sales declined -8.6% over the year to $1.19 billion from $1.30 billion in 2021. The figure missed analyst expectations for a figure around $1.35 billion. Management said that strong sales figures were generated from new and expanded brand partnerships. Leadership also highlighted that $50 million of the decline in sales came from FX headwinds.

When delving into segment performance; Hardware and accessories sales declined -6.4%  over the year to $627.0 million, Software sales retreated -19% to $352.1 million and Collectibles sales grew 8% to $207.3 million.

On the cost front, SG&A expenses declined -8% to $387.9 million and equated to 32.7% of sales, with the ratio flat over the year. Management highlighted that the cost to revenue ratio was lower than the previous quarter following cost reduction measures. In the medium term, SG&A costs may further decline with potential closures of non performing stores.

Net losses narrowed from -$105.4 million in Q3 of 2021 to  -$94.7 million in 2022. This equated to a marginal EPS improvement from -35 cents to -31 cents per share but less than consensus forecasts of -28 cents.

The retailer ended the quarter with $1.04 billion in cash and marketable securities on the balance sheet and $1.13 billion in merchandise inventory.

In the conference call CEO Matthew Furlong discussed that a large portion of corporate costs will be driven by “reductions in corporate headcount” made during the second half of 2022. The CEO even claimed that “In some cases, individuals who helped us complete key initiatives have left on their own accord and are not being replaced”.

Analyst Michael Pachter from Wedbush Securities slashed his price target from $6 to $5.30 for his ‘underperform’ call on the stock, claiming management’s turnaround plan has “proven fruitless so far”.

Pachter discussed short-term headwinds that continue to impact the stock including poor results from the NFT marketplace venture with a contraction in the sector as well as ongoing hardware constraints and hefty cash burn.

On average, the street remains bearish with a consensus ‘underweight’ recommendation and an average $12.10 price target.

When researching Fintel’s short squeeze data for GME, the platform indicates that short interest currently represents 21.56% of the float according to NYSE short interest data. The shorted stock has a ratio of 8.11 days to cover with a short squeeze score of 69.70. While the score is not extremely high, it still ranks GME in the top 75% of 5,039 screened stocks.

GameStop is currently the 4th most held security by retail investors who have linked their portfolio for free with the Fintel platform.

Despite being claimed a “meme stock” throughout the pandemic, GameStop has experienced slightly above average levels of institutional accumulation, giving it a Fintel fund sentiment score of 53.00.

The score ranks GameStop in the top 56% of 35,809 screened global securities. GME currently has 531 institutions on the register that collectively own 84.6 million shares. Some of the largest institutions include: Susquehanna International Group, State Street Corp, Citadel Advisors and Simplex Trading.

This article originally appeared on Fintel

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