Shares of GameStop soared Monday in premarket trading following speculation that the man behind the meme stock craze owns a large number of shares of the video game retailer that could worth millions.
Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” posted a screenshot to the r/SuperStonk forum on Reddit that users of the platform interpreted as an image of the company’s stock and call options that Gill owns in GameStop. The image suggested that Gill could hold 5 million shares of GameStop worth $115.7 million at Friday’s closing price.
Additionally, Roaring Kitty posted a photo on X of a reversed card from the popular game Uno on Sunday evening. No text accompanied the image. “As a meme in pop culture, a UNO Reverse card acts as the ultimate comeback that flips the script on someone,” according to WikiHow.
A former financial analyst at MassMutual, Gill in late 2020 encouraged individuals on Reddit to invest in GameStop and encouraged amateur retail investors to buy GameStop stock during the period. craze for meme stocks. He did this by posting on Reddit message boards and creating YouTube videos about the strategy, gaining a large audience. But in 2021, Gill revealed that he lost $13 million in one day of its investments in GameStop.
GameStock’s stock surged more than 87% in premarket trading and opened at $32.35 per share.
“If these gains continue, the stock would add about $8 billion to its market capitalization,” Nigel Green, CEO of financial services firm deVere Group, said in an email. “These very fast, very high, headline-grabbing numbers are likely to attract another huge wave of interest and, therefore, capital. I wouldn’t be surprised if the stock adds $100 billion by end of Monday due to the frenzy.”
Gill’s Roaring Kitty posts this weekend come about three weeks after he resurfaced online for the first time in three years. He did this simply by posting on the Roaring Kitty account on X an image of a man sitting forward in his chair, marking the end of his break. This post was followed by several others featuring various throwback-themed movie videos as well as busy music. Its reappearance caused the price of GameStop to soar.
GameStop in 2021 was a video game retailer struggling to survive as consumers quickly switched from discs to digital downloads. Wall Street hedge funds and major investors were betting against him, or selling his shares short, believing that his shares would continue on a drastic downward trend.
GameStop had seen declining sales amid an industry-wide transition from game cartridges to video game streaming and digital downloads, but with the help of meme stock investors, last March, the company made its first profit in two years. Previously, the company had posted seven consecutive quarterly losses. Last January, GameStop announced its first annual profit since 2018.
Last September, GameStop named Chewy founder Ryan Cohen as its new CEO. In its latest quarterly results in March, GameStop said it had cut an unspecified number of jobs to help reduce costs. The Texas-based company reported revenue of $1.79 billion, up from $2.23 billion a year earlier.
Gill was also the subject of a lawsuit in 2021, accusing him of profiting from “deceptive and manipulative conduct” in promoting GameStop stock. After appear before Congress to explain the phenomenon of the meme stock, its presence on social networks has become non-existent.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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