FOX Business senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino questioned the timing of Roaring Kitty’s live stream on “The Cramer Countdown” and the GameStop secondary sale.
GameStop investors got another deluge of news on Monday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, where CEO Ryan Cohen told investors that the video game retailer plans to “continue to reduce costs and focus on profitability,” but did not provide details.
The stock fell 12% and fell further on Tuesday, but is still up more than 100% this quarter amid extreme volatility. Most of that gain is due to “Roaring Kitty,” an individual investor who renewed his GameStop holdings in early May for the first time in three years.
| Ticker | safety | last | change | change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| global | GameStop Corp. | 25.22 | -3.48 | -12.13% |
““In some ways, this is a repeat of the meme stock trade that happened in 2021. We have Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, again,” Michael Piwower, a former Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner who is now vice president of finance at the Milken Institute, told FOX Business.
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Piwowar said that while it does not appear that Gill did anything illegal under current rules, he believes the SEC will likely review whether violations occurred and debate whether current rules are sufficient to protect investors and prevent market manipulation.
“The SEC was given a wake-up call three and a half years ago and hit the snooze button,” Piwowar said. “If the commission determines that this is contrary to the public interest, contrary to fair, orderly and efficient markets and investor protection, then they can change the rules,” he explained.
In response to a prior inquiry from FOX Business, the SEC said it “does not comment on whether or not there is a potential investigation.”
Gill has continued to post ambiguous social media posts that are open to interpretation, including one late Monday of a photo of former tennis legend John McEnroe from his professional days, who was known for his fiery temper on the court.
In a livestreamed video by Gill in early June that was viewed by about 600,000 people, he offered no new details but praised Cohen for his leadership.
Keith Gill, a Reddit user credited with driving GameStop’s stock price higher, speaks during a YouTube livestream broadcast from a laptop at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Friday, June 7, 2024. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Who is “ROARING KITTY”? What you need to know
“This is a bet against GameStop’s management, particularly CEO Ryan Cohen and his team,” he said, believing the video game retailer has entered a “transformation phase.” “There will probably be debate about how people feel about him and whether he can successfully transform the business,” the meme-stock retail trader said, joking, before urging viewers to “make up their own minds.”
On June 13, he updated his holdings on Reddit under the handle “DeepF—ingValue.” According to a screenshot posted, he now owns 9 million shares, purchased at $23.41 a share, which has risen in value to $262 million. His cash holdings have fallen from about $29 million to $6 million, bringing his total holdings to $268 million.
Keith Gill posted his latest account performance as of June 13, 2024, via his Reddit handle Superstonk/DeepF—ingValue. ()
His call options, valued at $81.7 million as of the June 10 update, are no longer on the account’s books. He could have exercised them or sold them outright.
Gill, via his Reddit handle “Superstonk/DeepF—ingValue,” posted the latest account performance as of Monday, June 10, 2024. (Superstonk / Reddit)
FOX Business cannot verify the accuracy of the account screenshots.
This month, GameStop reported a net loss of $32.2 million, down from a loss of $50.5 million in the same period last year. Revenue fell 28% to $881 million from $1.2 billion.
The company plans to sell up to 75 million more shares, on top of the 45 million it has already sold.
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