A single post by @TheRoaringKitty, the X profile of retail trader Keith Gill, led to rallies in meme coins and GameStop stock (NYSE: GME). Users interpreted the post as a sign to focus on certain stocks.
Gill’s cult following contributed to the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021. GME rose over 44% in GME pre-market trading, while AMC Entertainment Holdings jumped as much as 12%
A single picture on Monday sparked rallies across some cat-themed meme coins and Gamestop stock (NYSE: GME) as market cults heralded the apparent return of TheRoaringKitty, the X profile of retail trader Keith Gill, who made his first post since late 2021.
Gill posted a meme that refers to a period of “locking in,” a colloquial term for a period of intense focus or concentration. Users on X and Reddit largely seemed to consider the image as a sign to lock into trading markets.
Stocks related to Gill and other “meme stocks,” surged. GME prices were up as high as 44% in pre-market trading, and surged as high as 100% on market open before trading was halted. Cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) was up 12% in pre-market, rising to as much as 30% after open.
An unaffiliated GameStop meme coin on the Solana blockchain surged more than 550%, DEXTools data shows, while an AMC token jumped 1,200%. Some microcap cat-themed meme coins such as kitty (KITTY) rose thousands of percent, while larger tokens popcat (POPCAT) and mog (MOG) rose over 15%. Larger-cap meme coins (DOGE) and (SHIB) were higher by 5% and 7%, respectively.
Gill’s analysis of the video game retailer GameStop on Reddit, starting in 2019 and gaining traction during the COVID pandemic, created a viral phenomenon at the time. It was largely cited as a driving factor in the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021 as several small-time traders banded together and purchased options and leveraged shares of the company.
The stock rose from $4 to over $120 in a month and, at its peak, was up thousands of percent from its lifetime low of 64 cents in April 2020.
Gill’s initial $53,000 investment was worth nearly $50 million at its peak, emerging as a rags-to-riches story of a lone trader making a fortune from his bedroom by betting against hedge funds. One of the most prolific losers was Melvin Capital, a fund that lost billions of dollars betting on the decline of meme stocks, among other bets that move against it.
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