Meme stocks soar on Roaring Kitty's rumored return
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Keith Gill, known as Roaring Kitty. Photo Illustration: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Meme stocks roared on Monday, as speculation grew that Keith Gill, aka "Roaring Kitty" and "DeepF---kingValue" of WallStreetBets fame, was getting back in the game.
Why it matters: Gill helped fuel the meme-stock craze of 2021 by rallying an army of retail traders, who sent shares of battered companies soaring.
Between the lines: Gill mostly went silent starting in the summer of 2021.
- Then, on Monday, speculation of his return hit the market, and GameStop, the name most closely associated with the trader, jumped more than 70%.
- AMC Entertainment rose 40%, while Beyond — the new name for Overstock that acquired meme darling Bed Bath & Beyond last year — jumped more than 18%.
- Reddit, the host of WallStreetBets, rose by nearly 10%.
Zoom in: The rumors of Gill's return was sparked by a post on X Sunday night that showed a sketch of a man leaning forward in a chair while holding a videogame controller, as if he were re-engaging.
- Since then, he's posted edited movie clips all centered around characters returning to action.
- Before that, his last social media post was June 2021, which consisted of video clips of cats going to sleep.
Reality check: It's been a difficult run for many of the 2021-vintage meme stocks over the past couple of years. Even with today's rally, GameStop shares are down over 50% since June of 2021.
- AMC is down over 90%. And Beyond has lost over 75%.
What they're saying: Not everyone believes that the meme stock frenzy of 2021 can be duplicated.
- "The conditions are different," Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital, told Yahoo! Finance. "It was a point in time when you had a bunch of people stuck at home with free money and nothing to do and that's no longer the case."
- Gill's actual return to trading stocks has yet to be confirmed.
Flashback: The Roaring Kitty character returned to the public in 2023, when the movie "Dumb Money" debuted.
- The film portrayed the meme stock craze and featured the actor Paul Dano, who played Gill onscreen.
