(Reuters) -E*Trade is considering telling meme stock influencer Keith Gill that he can no longer use his platform after growing concerns about possible stock manipulation amid his recent purchases of GameStop, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Shortly before Gill reignited the meme stock craze in May, he bought a large number of GameStop options on E*Trade, the Journal report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
E*Trade parent company Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the report.
Shares of GameStop jumped about 30% on Monday after the stock influencer known as “Roaring Kitty” returned to Reddit with a post showing a $116 million bet on the embattled video game retailer.
The post was the first in three years from his Reddit account by Gill, the influencer behind the retail trading frenzy of 2021. In 2021, screenshots on Reddit of his bullish GameStop trades sparked a wave of demand for “meme stocks” — often companies with weak fundamentals that gained a cult-like following through social media hype among retailers.
The screenshot posted Sunday showed GameStop holdings of 5 million shares, or 1.8% of publicly available shares. Gill’s last post from April 2021, titled “last update”, showed an ownership of 200,000 shares worth $30.9 million.
Reuters was unable to verify the screenshot on Reddit.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
