Topline
Shares in GameStop, AMC Entertainment and other meme stocks were on a rollercoaster in premarket trading Friday after “Roaring Kitty,” the financial influencer who started the original meme stock craze, scheduled its first livestream in years.
GameStop is among the meme stocks surging following a return to activity for Roaring Kitty.
Key facts
GameStop shares fell 15% to $40 in premarket trading Friday morning after the retailer reported poor sales and a $3 billion stock offering, erasing previous plays of more than 30% in premarket after shares fell during regular trading Thursday rose more than 47%.
The rally comes after Keith Gill, who goes by the term “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube and
Gill’s upcoming screening also appears to have reignited trader interest in a number of other so-called meme stocks, with AMC Entertainment Holdings, another popular target for traders who follow influencers like Gill, closing more than 12% higher on Thursday, although the prices were extremely low. volatile in premarket trading, fluctuating from a gain of about 13% to a loss of about 10% at the time of writing.
Shares of fallen smartphone titan BlackBerry, struggling big-box retailer Bed Bath & Beyond and headphone maker Koss were also volatile, ranging from losses as high as 7% to gains of between 2% and 3% in premarket trading during the write-up, for example. , after rising more than 15% in regular trading on Thursday.
Shares of hyped electric vehicle maker Faraday Future were volatile, but rose to between 16% and 25% in premarket trading after gaining more than 2% the day before during regular trading hours, and another popular meme offering, Tupperware, then rose almost 2% in premarket. up more than 6% on Thursday.
Trading platform Robinhood – which is popular among retail investors and has played a role in kick-starting the meme stock craze – has become something of a meme stock in its own right, gaining 6.5% in regular trading on Thursday and 2.5% on Friday % in premarket trading. , although it is possible that this was influenced by news that crypto exchange Bitstamp had inked a deal for $200 million.
Who is Roaring Kitty?
‘Roaring Kitty’ is the pseudonymous username Gill uses on YouTube and X. On Reddit, home to influential trading forums like r/WallStreetBets, Gill goes by the username “DeepFuckingValue,” often shortened to just DFV. He is an influential figure among retail investors and on online trading forums and is widely seen as the instigator of the 2021 meme stock frenzy. He has reportedly made a small fortune during that period, although he has been largely absent from social media and public opinion . live since. Before making it big as a social media influencer, Gill worked as a financial analyst. He has come under heavy criticism for his posts that fueled the investor mania for meme stocks, but he defended himself in testimony before Congress, saying his content was for educational purposes only. His recent return to social media and his post on Reddit in which he revealed a nearly $116 million position in the gaming retailer have sparked a GameStop frenzy. Forbes has not been able to verify Gill’s position, nor to prove the posted image claiming it.
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The Roaring Kitty livestream is scheduled for Friday at noon ET.
What we don’t know
Gill did not reveal what he plans to discuss or show during the livestream, although in previous broadcasts he has hyped the market moves for various meme stocks like GameStop, revealed positions he holds and explained his investment philosophy. Gill’s last YouTube livestream in January 2021 attracted more than 1.2 million viewers and at the time of writing there were already 15,000 people waiting for Friday’s broadcast to start.
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Important background
Gill is a legend among social media retailers and has developed a cult-like following that fueled the original meme stock rally in 2021. He made a splash last month when he started posting again after a year-long hiatus, sparking interest in many stocks popular during the original mania. Shares of companies like GameStop and AMC are popular targets in these types of rallies, and while many experience only temporary spikes, GameStop has seen more lasting benefits from the spikes in public interest. Many traditional investors and analysts have seen the meme stock phenomenon as an aberration caused by modern investment vehicles, with prices jumping to unwarranted levels based on interest and hype rather than typical metrics such as profits. By its nature, investing in such stocks can be a volatile and unpredictable endeavor, and moves in blocks of several tens of percent in a single day are not uncommon.
Tangent
Gill’s upcoming broadcast appears to have sparked a rally in a GameStop-inspired cryptocurrency, GME. The Solana-based memecoin has risen more than 142% in the past 24 hours and now has a market cap of $197 million. This is part of a week-long rally that has seen the token’s value increase sevenfold.
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