GameStop surges after meme stock investor 'Roaring Kitty' resurfaces online

Rafael Nam

May 13, 2024 / 10:52 am

caption: Keith Gill, known as "Roaring Kitty" online, testifies during a virtual hearing on GameStop before the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 18, 2021. On Monday, Gill made his first online posting on X in about three years, sending shares of GameStop sharply higher.

Updated May 13, 2024 at 2:03 PM ET

Shares in video game retailer GameStop surged as much as 118% on Monday after meme stock investor "Roaring Kitty" posted a cryptic image in X, in his first post in the online platform in about three years.

Roaring Kitty, who became one of the key promotors of the 2021 rally in GameStop and in other companies such as movie theater chain AMC, posted a picture of a person who leans forward while gripping a game controller.

The image is known as a meme that suggests things are starting to get "serious." It was the first posting on X by Keith Gill, who goes by Roaring Kitty online, since June 2021.

Trading in GameStop shares was halted several times, showcasing just how frantic activity around the stock got. Shares were up over 60% as of early afternoon.

For many investors it was a reminder of the meme stock mania that gripped markets in 2021, when the pandemic left many people around the world confined at home.

GameStop had already been having a bit of a comeback this month: Shares were up 57% this month as of the end of last week, before shares rallied again on Monday.

'A form of entertainment'

Keith Gill, or Roaring Kitty, was an instrumental figure in whipping up that meme stock frenzy about three years ago.

Gill became a day trader after previously working for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co, or MassMutual. During the pandemic, he and other amateur investors banded together in Reddit groups like wallstreetbets to buy stocks of companies such as GameStop, AMC and retailer Bed Bath & Beyond to the bafflement of professional investors in Wall Street.

Often these amateur investors would buy up shares in companies that some professional investors were betting against.

Prof. James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University warned about the risks of meme stocks for amateur investors, calling them "a form of entertainment."

Meme stocks tend to consist of companies that "had a lot of trouble and they're usually very volatile," Angel added.

GameStop is in the midst of attempting a turnaround after seeing sales decline as more people have migrated to online games.