GameStop shares were up 35.1% at US$31.27 as of early Monday afternoon. (Associated Press/John Minchillo)
Shares of GameStop were soaring in markets Monday following speculation that the man at the center of the pandemic stock craze owns a large number of shares of the video game retailer that could be worth million.
Shares of GameStop were up 35.1% at $31.27 (US$) as of early Monday afternoon, after surging above US$40 just after trading opened.
Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty” on social media platforms YouTube and X, also goes by the name Deep F- – – – – – Value on Reddit.
On Sunday evening, the Reddit account shared a screenshot on the r/SuperStonk forum that some believe may be an image of the shares and call options Keith Gill holds in GameStop. The image shows that Keith Gill could hold 5 million shares of GameStop worth US$115.7 million (US$M) at Friday’s closing price. The screenshot also shows 120,000 call options in GameStop with a strike price of US$20 which expire on June 21. The call options were purchased at approximately US$5.68 each.
Additionally, Keith Gill’s account on X posted a photo of a reversed card from the popular game Uno on Sunday evening. No text accompanied the image.
This latest activity comes about three weeks after Keith Gill appeared online for the first time in three years, driving up the price of GameStop at the time. In May, the “Roaring Kitty” account posted an image on X of a man sitting forward in his chair, a meme used by gamers when things get serious.
The post about FYI, here is a quick 4 minute video I made to summarize the $GME pitch.”
GameStop in 2021 was a video game retailer that was struggling to survive as consumers quickly switched from discs to digital downloads. Large Wall Street hedge funds and major investors were betting against the retailer, or selling its shares short, believing that its shares would continue on a drastic downward trend.
Keith Gill and those who agreed with him changed the trajectory of a company that seemed headed for bankruptcy by buying back thousands of GameStop shares, defying almost every accepted metric that told investors the company was in serious difficulty.
That triggered what’s known as a “short squeeze,” when large investors who had bet against GameStop were forced to buy its rapidly rising shares to offset their massive losses.
The story of “Roaring Kitty” and the stock meme craze was the subject of a movie last year, called “Dumb Money.”
Other entities that joined the meme wave Monday included movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings, which was up more than 26% in trading before the session began. Koss Corp., a maker of headphones, rose more than 14% and BlackBerry, the once-dominant smartphone maker, climbed more than 4%.
