SEC Enforcement Chairman Dickinson Wright and Frontline Compliance Founder Amy Lynch examine the impact of “Roaring Kitty” on GameStop and the increased regulatory scrutiny of GameStop investors.
Roaring Kitty came back with a vengeance last month, sending his top holding, GameStop Corp., into a trading frenzy.
The meme stocks retail trader, popularly known as Keith Gill, posted a photo of a video game player sitting slouched on his “Roaring Kitty” X account on May 12, breaking a nearly three-year hiatus. Prior to that, the most recent post on X was from June 2021.
He followed this post with numerous video clips over the next few weeks, cluttering up his timeline until his first YouTube Live stream in nearly three years in June.
FOX Business takes a look at who “Roaring Kitty” is and what he has to say about GameStop.
Keith Gill – “Roaring Kitty”
While testifying before Congress three years ago, the retailer shared some details about himself, including that he grew up in Massachusetts and was the first in his family to earn a bachelor’s degree. He is estimated to be 38 years old.
Media first linked Gill to X and the YouTube “Roaring Kitty” account and Reddit username “DeepF*ckingValue” in early 2021, during the height of the Reddit day-trader-driven GameStop short-selling frenzy.
According to his testimony, he learned about investing in general from the jobs he held and the time he spent outside of work analyzing stocks.
“The notion that I used social media to promote GameStop shares to unsuspecting investors is outrageous,” he testified at the time. “My channel was for educational purposes only and it was abundantly clear to me that my aggressive investing style would not be appropriate for most people who followed my channel.”
Keith Gill, a Reddit user credited with driving GameStop’s stock price higher, smiles as he speaks virtually from a laptop during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Tiskilwa, Illinois, on February 18, 2021. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Gamestop positions
The video game retailer’s shares are not unusual in the meme world of volatile trading, but Gill’s return last month has sent the stock soaring more than 125% in the second quarter of 2024 alone, amid several days of extreme volatility and multiple trading halts.
| Ticker | safety | last | change | change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| global | GameStop Corp. | 28.24 | -18.18 | -39.16% |
Gill, who goes by the name DeepF——Value on Reddit and “Roaring Kitty” on other platforms, said he owns 5 million GameStop shares, which represents 1.8% of the company’s publicly traded shares. He also disclosed that he holds $65.7 million in GameStop call options, which are typically purchased to show bullish views. They expire on June 21 with a strike price of $20. They are estimated to be worth about $116 million.
He acknowledged his position during a YouTube live broadcast on June 7th.
GameStop shares surge after X posts “roaring kitten”
“Roaring Kitty” YouTube Live Stream
Gill hosted a highly anticipated livestream on June 7, in which he sounded upbeat as he spoke about GameStop and reiterated his belief in management’s ability to turn the company around.
He argued that now that GameStop appears to be entering a “transformation phase,” the company is “betting on management, particularly CEO Ryan Cohen and his staff.”
“There’s probably going to be debate about how people feel about him and whether he can successfully transform that business,” Gill told viewers. “I think there’s enough room to think this guy could do it, but there’s no guarantee.”
He also showed viewers what appeared to be his brokerage account at one point during the livestream, showing that he still had an investment in GameStop three years later.
At the same time, he stressed that what he said was not advice, and that “don’t blindly follow anyone.”
Keith Gill, a Reddit user who is credited with driving GameStop’s stock price higher, appears on a YouTube livestream broadcast from a laptop at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, June 7, 2024, in New York. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
GameStop stock
GameStop’s stock price rose significantly in late January 2021, briefly reaching $483 in trading on Jan. 28. This came after retail investors and Reddit traders took on short sellers and hedge funds, as previously reported by FOX Business.
The stock price closed at $28.22 on June 7, 2024.
Potential legal issues?
The Massachusetts Department of Securities confirmed to FOX Business’ Kelly O’Grady this week that it is investigating the trading activities of Keith Gill (Roaring Kitty) after Gill purchased call options on GameStop prior to posting on social media that likely helped drive up the stock’s price.
The SEC did not respond to Fox Business’ request for comment, so it’s unclear whether Gill’s posts are related to any kind of market manipulation.
For more information on FOX Business, click here
Hollywood is taking notice
His involvement was recently depicted in the film Damn Money, directed by Craig Gillespie and based on the Ben Mezrich book The Anti-Social Network, with the producers casting Paul Dano as Gil.
Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee in February 2021, Gill said his “GameStop investment and social media posts are entirely my own and based solely on publicly available information.”
Gill said he decided to invest in GameStop because he believes the company is “significantly undervalued.” (Shelby Knowles/Bloomberg/File/Getty Images)
Reddit’s GameStop short squeeze becomes ‘Damn Money’ movie
Breck Dumas and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
