IT WAS just a screenshot of a portfolio, posted without comment on Sunday (Jun 2) on Reddit by an account associated with Keith Gill.
But if the unverified image in fact reflects his actual holdings, it showed the man who goes by the monikers DeepF–ingValue and Roaring Kitty was worth US$289 million on Monday.
Gill – who played a starring role in 2021’s meme-stock mania and inspired a legion of individual investors to prop up shares of GameStop – did not respond to a request for comment.
Shares of the video game retailer surged 21 per cent to close at US$28, netting the portfolio roughly US$79 million in a single trading day, according to a subsequent post on Monday. Brokerage E*Trade is considering kicking Gill off of its platform over concerns about potential stock manipulation tied to his recent GameStop options purchase, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Ginning up euphoria over GameStop is familiar territory for Gill, who became a folk hero and Wall Street bete noire after a series of videos he posted about the company more than three years ago fuelled a runaway rally in the stock, inflicting dramatic losses on hedge funds betting against it.
Gill testified about the episode before Congress in 2021, and his exploits served as grist for last year’s film Dumb Money, where he was portrayed by actor Paul Dano.
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Regardless of the recent screenshot’s provenance, the jolt to GameStop stock served as a reminder of the outsize impact Gill’s well-known Reddit account still wields. Both images posted to Reddit show five million shares of GameStop and 120,000 call options expiring Jun 21, as well as more than US$29 million in cash.
The options would allow the purchase of an additional 12 million shares. The position could hypothetically make him the retailer’s fourth-largest shareholder, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The cryptic posts bear a notable difference from DeepF–kingValue’s similar snapshot in April 2021, which showed a GameStop position worth just US$31 million.
Gill’s social media accounts had been dormant for more than three years until last month, when Roaring Kitty resurfaced on X, posting an image of a man leaning forward in a chair. Fans took the hieroglyph as an indication their beloved leader was back in action, and bid up the shares. Still, GameStop shares are trading almost 68 per cent below their January 2021 peak. BLOOMBERG
