Top line
Shares of GameStop, AMC Entertainment and other meme stocks were on a rollercoaster during pre-market trading Friday after financial influencer “Roaring Kitty” credited himself with starting the original meme stock craze and scheduled his first live broadcast in years.
GameStop is one of the meme stocks that is surging after a return to activity for Roaring Kitty.
Key facts
Shares of GameStop fell 15% to $40 in premarket trading Friday morning after the retailer reported weak sales and a $3 billion stock offering, wiping out previous games by more than 30% in premarket trading after the stock in regular trading Thursday jumped by more than 47%.
The rally comes after Keith Gill, who goes by the YouTube handle “Roaring Kitty” and X, scheduled a YouTube live stream for Friday at 12:00 PM ET, his first video in more than three years.
Gill’s impending vetting appears to have rekindled trader interest in a number of other so-called meme stocks as well, with AMC Entertainment Holdings, another favorite target of traders following influencers like Gill, closing up more than 12% on Thursday, although prices were extremely volatile in pre-market trading, at the time of writing, it ranges from a profit of around 13% to a loss of around 10%.
Shares of fallen smartphone titan BlackBerry, struggling grocer Bed Bath & Beyond and headphone maker Koss were also volatile, ranging from losses of as much as 7% to gains of between 2% and 3% in premarket trading at the time of writing. , after climbing more than 15% during regular trading Thursday.
Shares of hyped electric vehicle maker Faraday Future were volatile but climbed between 16% and 25% in premarket trading after gaining more than 2% in regular trading hours the day before, and another meme favorite, Tupperware, climbed nearly by 2%. on Thursday they gained more than 6%.
Trading platform Robinhood — which is popular with retail investors and played a role in enabling the meme stock craze — became something of a meme stock in its own right, gaining 6.5% in regular trading Thursday and 2.5% on Friday in front of the market. , though it’s possible that this may have been influenced by reports that it struck a deal with crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million.
Who is the roaring kitty?
‘Roaring Kitty’ is the pseudonymous username used by Gill on YouTube and X. On Reddit, home to influential trading forums such as r/WallStreetBets, Gill goes by “DeepFuckingValue”, often abbreviated to just DFV. An influential figure among retail investors and online trading forums, he is widely credited with starting the meme stock craze in 2021. He is said to have made a small fortune during this period, although he has been largely absent from social media and the public eye. life since then. Gill worked as a financial analyst before establishing himself as a social media influencer. He faced heavy criticism for his posts, which helped fuel an investor mania for meme stocks, but defended himself in testimony before Congress, saying his content was for educational purposes only. His recent return to social media and a Reddit post revealing a nearly $116 million position with the game retailer sent GameStop into a frenzy. Forbes was unable to verify Gill’s status or the published image purporting to prove it.
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Roaring Kitty is scheduled to go live on Friday at 12pm ET.
What we don’t know
Gill didn’t reveal what he plans to discuss or demonstrate during the live stream, though previous broadcasts have included him hyping market moves for various meme stocks like GameStop, revealing the positions he holds and explaining his investment philosophy. Gill’s last live stream on YouTube in January 2021 attracted more than 1.2 million viewers, and at the time of writing, 15,000 people were already listed as “waiting” for Friday’s broadcast to begin.
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Key background
A legend among retailers on social media, Gill has built a cult following that helped fuel the original Stock Rally 2021 meme. Last month, he made a big splash when he started posting again after a year-long hiatus, reigniting interest in many stocks popular during the original mania. Stocks of companies like GameStop and AMC are popular targets in these types of rallies, and while many only experience temporary gains, GameStop has seen more lasting benefits from the surge in public interest. Many mainstream investors and analysts viewed the meme stock phenomenon as an aberration driven by modern investment vehicles, where prices soared to unjustifiable levels based on interest and hype rather than typical metrics such as earnings. Investing in such stocks can be inherently volatile and unpredictable, and block movements of tens of percent in a single day are not uncommon.
Tangent
Gill’s upcoming broadcast appears to have sparked a rally in the GameStop-inspired cryptocurrency, GME. The Solana-based memecoin is up more than 142% in the last 24 hours and now has a market cap of $197 million. This is part of a weekly rally that has seen the token increase sevenfold in value.
Further reading