YouTube influencer “turning a stone into gold”? GoPro (GPRO.US) surged another 60% before the market, and the loss in performance could not stop the stock price frenzy

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the stock price of action camera manufacturer GoPro (GPRO.US) continued to fluctuate sharply. Following a sharp rise of 46% on Monday, it soared again during the pre-market trading session on Tuesday, once soaring 106%. As of press time, it had risen more than 60% before the market. This round of rebound pulled the stock price back to May levels, but it is still far below the 52-week high of $3.05.

This buying enthusiasm was sparked by news — according to media reports, famous YouTube creator Mark Fischbach (screen name Markiplier) has become the company's largest single shareholder. “When I saw the price of this stock, my first reaction was that it seemed undervalued,” Markiplier said in an interview.

Markiplier revealed that the investment “has been progressing in a low-key manner” because he “really wants to see this company reverse the situation”. Notably, Markiplier just posted a video last week praising GoPro's new Mission 1 ILS interchangeable lens cinema-grade camera, calling it “amazing what it can do in such a compact body” and plans to use the device in future film projects.

Markiplier has nearly 40 million subscribers on YouTube, and the first horror film “Iron Lung”, which was written and directed by itself earlier this year, garnered over $50 million in box office with a budget of 3 million dollars. Its investment in GoPro was interpreted by the outside world as part of a larger mission to “make filmmaking more popular”.

In terms of fundamentals, the second-quarter earnings report released by GoPro showed a loss of $0.21 per share for the quarter, up from a loss of 0.08 US dollars per share in the same period last year. Revenue fell more than 31% year over year to US$105 million, mainly due to the decline in hardware business revenue. Hardware revenue accounted for 72% of total revenue, down about 40% year over year to 75.95 million US dollars. At the same time, subscription and service revenue increased 11% year over year to US$28.98 million, accounting for 28% of total revenue, including a revenue contribution of US$2 million from the GoPro AI content licensing program.

Notably, GoPro's current short positions account for 16.5% of the total outstanding share capital, which means that the stock is still facing greater pressure to vacate.

Worryingly, according to Gizmodo, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has expressed “substantial doubts” about GoPro's ability to continue operating — one of the most serious risk alerts in the audit field. As of the end of June, the company's principal debt reached US$87.2 million, of which US$24.4 million will mature within 180 days.