After the Reddit user who created the 2021 meme-stock “Roaring Kitty” revealed what looked to be a $116 million investment in GameStop Corp., the company’s shares more than doubled.
Keith Gill, who goes by DeepF— Value on Reddit, posted a screenshot on June 2 that shows five million shares were purchased at a price of $21.27 each. It was the first post the account had made in three years. It was impossible to confirm the screenshot, which also included 120,000 call options with a $65.7 million expiration date on June 21. With the options, he could purchase the stock for $20 per share.
In premarket trading on Monday, GME shares increased by as much as 105% before retreating somewhat. The stock would increase its market capitalization by roughly $8 billion if premarket gains continue.
Retail traders’ other preferred stocks saw an increase as well. In premarket trading, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. saw a 36% increase, while other stronger stocks included BlackBerry Ltd., Beyond Meat Inc., SunPower Corp., and Reddit Inc.
Gill shared a picture of a UNO reverse card—which players in the game use to alter the direction of card pickup—on social media platform X under the username “Roaring Kitty.” In the nine hours since it was published, at approximately 8 p.m. on Sunday, New York time, the post has received roughly 5.5 million views.
Robert Lea, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, stated that the recent resurgence of interest in meme stocks “is a sign of excessive over-exuberance and is more likely a negative prophecy given the rising headwinds in the markets.” This comes as the major US indices are struggling to reach new highs.
Since he encouraged day traders on Reddit in 2021 to purchase the stock in order to retaliate against short sellers and claimed that the company was ready to “reinvent” itself as a premier gaming hub, Gill had mainly remained quiet on social media.
In 2021, during his testimony before the US Congress regarding the GameStop craze, Gill identified himself as an occasional day trader. Additionally, he stated that he thought the stock presented an alluring opportunity for investors and had no intention of contributing to the GameStop frenzy.
He teased a potential active comeback to the market in mid-May when he returned to X sporting an image of a leaning video gamer.
Following a two-day surge sparked by his mid-May post, GameStop shares have dropped by more than 50%. Early in 2021, the stock famously surged more than 2,000%, igniting the meme-stock craze and making it widely known.
Gill included a screenshot in his most recent Reddit post on April 16, 2021, indicating that he owned 200,000 GameStop shares, or roughly $30.9 million, at the time.
Gill recently shared a post on Reddit in the “a place for theoretical approaches about GameStop stock” subforum, r/Superstonk.
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US Stock: GameStop Reached $1 Billion In Stock Sale
Source
Yahoo Finance
