E*Trade is reportedly considering banning “Roaring Kitty” after the famous meme stock trader dramatically drove GameStop shares up again on Monday.
Citing anonymous sources, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that “Roaring Kitty,” whose real name is Keith Gill, bought “vast amounts” of GameStop options on E*Trade just before sparking a new trading frenzy in GameStop shares last month.
Over the weekend, Gill posted screenshots from his account revealing that he holds $116 million worth of GameStop stock, as well as a large amount of options expiring at the end of this month, bringing his total profit from his holdings to $6.86 million, according to the screenshots.
Gill, known on Reddit as “DeepF-kingValue” and on X and YouTube by his stage name “Roaring Kitty,” helped send GameStop shares soaring 75% in early trading on Monday with his latest posts. The stock closed up 21%.
The wild moves have raised concerns about market manipulation at E*Trade, with executives at the Morgan Stanley-owned day-trading platform worried about the enormous power Gill could wield over the markets for his own gain, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Nevertheless, company executives are “debating” whether to crack down on Gill and “whether the company is willing to risk attracting the attention of his meme army by removing him,” the paper reported, citing anonymous sources.
On Monday, Gill took to Reddit and posted from his official account for the first time in three years.
The Reddit post was a repeat of when he posted screenshots of bullish GameStop trades in 2021, sparking a surge in demand for “meme stocks” — companies that often have weak fundamentals that have developed a cult following through social media hype.
But unlike in 2021, Gill declined to post the story in the “WallStreetBets” chat room where he had been posting trading updates during the GameStop mania.
A screenshot posted on Sunday showed GameStop owning 5 million shares, or 1.8% of the publicly traded stock.
Gill’s final post, titled “Last Update” in April 2021, showed he owned 200,000 shares of GameStop stock worth $30.9 million.
It also showed $65.7 million worth of call options on GameStop, typically purchased to express a bullish outlook, expiring June 21 with a strike price of $20.
The company’s shares closed at $23.14 on Friday, up about 33 percent since Gill began sharing cryptic posts and memes from his X.com “Roaring Kitty” account in May, stimulating speculation about whether he will resume sharing his trading details online after a hiatus.
GameStop shares soared to $40.50 at the start of trading on Monday before giving up more than half of their gains. As of mid-afternoon Monday, the stock was trading at $29.93, up 29%.
It’s unclear if Gill is behind the latest post, as there has been speculation online that he may have sold his X account to a conceptual artist.
Gill’s popular YouTube channel, which has more than 676,000 subscribers, has been on hiatus for the past three years.
Last month, Gill posted a popular meme image depicting a man slouching in his chair while holding a video game controller.
The meme has been viewed tens of millions of times and garnered hundreds of thousands of likes, sparking speculation that Gill might be returning to the public eye after not posting online for years.
Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop saw its trading volume soar 400%, the highest in three years, thanks to the meme, but the gains soon evaporated.
Renaissance Technologies, one of the world’s leading hedge funds founded by legendary investor Jim Simons, bought more than 1 million shares of GameStop just weeks before the stock price rally.
The meme-stock craze caught the attention of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said in late May that he had bought $24,000 worth of GameStop shares in solidarity with “the monkeys,” a term used to describe individual stock traders.
“Keith Gill is putting his money where his mouth is and some investors are clearly following his lead and rekindling interest in meme stocks,” said Ben Laidler, global market strategist at digital brokerage EToro.
GameStop was the No. 1 trending stock on investor social media platform stockstwits.com, a sign of increased discussion among retail traders, while fellow meme stock AMC rose 26%.
Shares of Tupperware, SunPower Corp and U.S.-listed BlackBerry rose between 6 and 13 percent.
Monday’s surge is set to leave GameStop short sellers with book losses approaching $1 billion, according to data and analytics firm Ortex Technologies.
GameStop has been struggling with slowing sales as consumers shift to digital downloads and streaming of games has hurt its core business of selling new and used video game discs.
The Washington Post has reached out to the operator of the Reddit account for comment.
With post wire
