Shares of GameStop rose in premarket trading Monday on speculation that the man behind the meme stock craze owns a large number of shares of the video game retailer that could be worth millions.
Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” posted a screenshot on the r/SuperStonk forum on Reddit that users on the platform interpreted as an image of company stock and call options Gill holds in GameStop. The image suggested Gill may own 5 million shares of GameStop, which were worth $115.7 million at Friday’s closing price.
In addition, Roaring Kitty posted a photo of an upside-down card from the popular game Uno on Sunday evening on X. There was no text with the image.
“As a pop culture meme, a UNO Reverse card acts as the ultimate comeback that flips the script on someone,” according to WikiHow.
Gill, a former financial analyst at MassMutual, encouraged individuals on Reddit to invest in GameStop in late 2020 and encouraged amateur retail investors to buy GameStop stock during the meme stock rage. He did this by posting on Reddit discussion boards and making videos on YouTube about the strategy, which helped him gain a large following. But in 2021, Gill revealed that he had lost $13 million in one day of his investments in GameStop.
Shares of GameStop soared more than 87% in premarket trading, opening at $32.35 per share.
“If these gains hold, the stock would add approximately $8 billion to its market cap,” Nigel Green, the CEO of financial services firm deVere Group, said in an email. “These super-fast, super-high headline-grabbing numbers are likely to attract another huge wave of interest and therefore capital. I wouldn’t be surprised if stocks added $100 billion by the end of Monday as a result of 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 an image to the Roaring Kitty account on X of a man sitting forward in his chair, marking the end of his break. That post was followed by several others with various comeback theme videos from movies and loaded music. His return caused GameStop’s price to rise.
GameStop was a video game retailer struggling to survive in 2021 as consumers quickly switched from discs to digital downloads. Wall Street hedge funds and major investors bet against it, or shorted the stock, believing the stock would remain in a drastic downward trend.
GameStop had experienced declining sales amid an industry-wide shift from gaming cartridges to video game streaming and digital downloads, but with the help of meme stock investors, the company decided last March posted its first profit in two years. Previously, the company had posted seven consecutive quarterly losses. In January, GameStop reported its first annual profit since 2018.
Last September, GameStop named Chewy founder Ryan Cohen as its new CEO. In its most recent March quarter results, GameStop said it has eliminated an unspecified number of jobs to help reduce costs. The Texas-based company posted revenue of $1.79 billion, up from $2.23 billion a year earlier.
Gill was also served with a lawsuit in 2021, accusing him of profiting from “deceptive and manipulative conduct” in promoting GameStop stock. After appear before Congress To explain the meme stock phenomenon, his social media presence dwindled to non-existence.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.
