GameStop shares surge as Roaring Kitty returns to social media

Shares of GameStop skyrocketed Monday after the same amateur trader who drove the 2021 meme stock frenzy over the video game retailer returned to social media.

GameStop shares were up nearly 70 percent Monday morning, rising to roughly $30 per share from a Friday closing price of $17.39. GameStop shares had peaked at just less than $36 Monday morning, its highest price since 2022.

The resurgence of GameStop shares appeared to be kicked off by a Sunday evening social media post from Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill, who laid out the case for buying shares of the company in 2020 and laid the groundwork for the frenzy that followed in 2021.

Gill posted on the social platform X a picture of a man suddenly sitting upright in a chair with no accompanying text or message. It was his first appearance on the platform since June 2021, when he posted a brief video of several kittens sleeping before going silent on X for nearly three years.

Gill was more prominently known through his YouTube videos and presence on the Reddit community r/WallStreetBets as a user named “deepf—ingvalue.” He and a cadre of retail investors on WallStreetBets launched a “short squeeze” against investors who bet against GameStop, forcing massive losses at a major New York hedge fund. 

GameStop was struggling in the aftermath of the pandemic as consumers switched rapidly from discs to digital downloads. Gill and his followers injected a shot of life into a company that appeared to headed for bankruptcy.

GameStop shares peaked near $82 in January 2021 before falling sharply and then bouncing throughout 2021 and 2022. The meme stock frenzy created an uproar on Wall Street and concern among policymakers, who feared the implications of social media-driven swings in the stock market.

While Gill and his employer MassMutual were inundated with lawsuits, they faced no criminal charges despite calls from the Wall Street vanguard to crack down on the meme stock frenzy.

Some meme stocks, including GameStop and AMC, had already been climbing higher before Gill’s return.

Shares of GameStop were already up 57 percent this month. Movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, another meme stock target, had risen 10 percent over the past 30 days.

The Associated Press contributed.