Shares of online pet food retailer Chewy jumped more than 10% in premarket trading Monday after the company revealed that internet meme stock star “Roaring Kitty” owns a sizable stake in the company, but then began to fall after the opening bell.
Keith Gill, a popular social media influencer with more than 1.6 million online followers on X, filed a disclosure document with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday announcing that he owns 9,001,000 shares of Chewy stock, representing 6.6% of the company’s stock and valued at roughly $245 million.
The filing comes just days after the investor, known for sparking 2021’s meme stock rally, posted a caption-free photo of a puppy on social media platform X.
After Gill posted his article last Thursday, Chewy’s shares soared to their highest level in a year but have since given up those gains.
However, the company’s shares plunged more than 4% after the open of trading on Monday.
Gill, a former financial analyst at MassMutual, was charged in a class-action lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn federal court with securities fraud for allegedly hatching a “pump-and-dump” scheme designed to artificially inflate the stock price of video game retailer GameStop.
The SEC filing, which listed Keith Gill as the reporter, included a section titled “Please check the appropriate box to indicate whether you are a cat,” and underneath that, the statement “I am not a cat” was checked.
The SEC and Gill could not immediately be reached for comment.
Gill is known for publicly disclosing his trading positions on platforms such as YouTube and Reddit, where he is known as “DeepF-kingValue” to the many retail traders who follow his instructions.
Shares of Chewy, which sells pet food and medicines online, are up 15% so far in 2024 but have fallen over the past three years as spending on pets slowed after a post-pandemic economic boom.
Analysts said last week that Gill’s interest in Chewy may also be influenced by the fact that the pet retailer was founded by GameStop Corp. CEO Ryan Cohen.
GameStop has risen nearly 700% in 2021’s meme-stock rally, fueled by Gill’s posts.
Gill returned to Reddit on June 2 after a multi-year hiatus, posting screenshots revealing his significant holdings of GameStop stock and options positions.
The video game retailer’s shares have been volatile since Gill’s re-emergence.
So far this year, it has made 40%.
