(Reuters) – Shares of GameStop (GME) rose on Thursday after a cryptic post from meme stock influencer Keith Gill, who rose to fame after his online personas and bullish bets on the video game retailer sparked a trading frenzy among mom-and-pop investors.
Gill posted a photo of a Time magazine cover showing a computer screen on social media platform
Known as “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube and “DeepF***ingValue” on Reddit’s popular WallStreetBets, Gill was a key figure in the so-called “Reddit rally,” which saw GameStop shares soar 1,600% at one point in January 2021. , crushing hedge funds that had bet against the video game retailer.
About 300,000 GameStop options contracts had changed hands as of 2:14 p.m. (1914 GMT) on Thursday, at about 1.5 times the usual pace, according to data from options analytics firm Trade Alert.
The stock’s 30-day implied volatility – the extent to which traders expect the stock to move in the near term – rose to a three-week high of 132%, up from 93% in the previous session, data showed.
Contracts betting on the stock that ended above $30 on Friday were the most actively traded options, with about 32,000 trading by late afternoon.
Gill resurfaced on social media earlier in 2024, after a three-year hiatus that led to a flood of excited messages from his followers, many of whom have likened the social media phenomenon to a David taking on the Goliaths of Wall Street and won.
The 2021 meme stock rally was sparked by Gill’s posts on the WallStreetBets subreddit about the gains he made on his investments in the heavily shorted company.
The rally spread to other heavily shorted stocks, including AMC, as Reddit users united to pressure bearish hedge funds, costing them billions in losses and drawing criticism from U.S. regulators.
The entire episode inspired Craig Gillespie’s 2023 film “Dumb Money.”
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Alan Barona)
