GameStop shares soared on Monday after the same amateur trader who fueled the 2021 meme stock frenzy about the video game retailer returned to social media.
GameStop shares rose nearly 70 percent on Monday morning, rising to about $30 per share from Friday’s closing price of $17.39. GameStop shares peaked at just under $36 on Monday morning, their highest price since 2022.
The resurgence in GameStop shares appeared to have been sparked by a social media post on Sunday night from Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill, who laid out the case for buying the company’s shares in 2020 and laid the groundwork for the frenzy that followed. continued in 2021.
Gill posted a photo on social platform X of a man suddenly sitting in a chair, without any text or message. It was his first appearance on the platform since June 2021, when he posted a brief video of several sleeping kittens before going silent on X for nearly three years.
Gill was best known for his YouTube videos and presence on the Reddit community r/WallStreetBets as a user named “deepf—ingvalue.” He and a group of retail investors at WallStreetBets launched a “short squeeze” against investors betting against GameStop, forcing massive losses at a major New York hedge fund.
GameStop was struggling in the wake of the pandemic as consumers quickly switched from discs to digital downloads. Gill and his followers injected life into a company that appeared to be on the verge of 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 lawmakers, who they feared the implications of social media-driven stock market swings.
Although Gill and his employer MassMutual have been inundated with lawsuits, they have not faced criminal charges, despite calls from the Wall Street vanguard to clamp down on the meme stock frenzy.
Some meme stocks, including GameStop and AMC, were already rising before Gill’s return.
GameStop shares have already risen 57% this month. Movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, another meme stock target, is up 10% in the past 30 days.
The Associated Press contributed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
