Roaring Kitty’s diatribe on GameStop forced Nasdaq to halt trading 8 times in an hour as the company’s stock surged then plunged
Memestock ringleader Keith Gill, known online as Roaring Kitty, made his first on-camera appearance in over three years in a livestream midday on Friday, sending GameStop stock down over 40% from this morning’s peak and forcing exchanges to halt trading eight times in a single hour for volatility as traders sent shares up and down over the course of the nearly hour-long stream.
Over the course of the rambling, 50-minute call, Gill expounded on his faith in GameStop’s corporate strategy and its new CEO, Ryan Cohen, and confirmed that screenshots posted to his Reddit account earlier this week displaying a brokerage account with over 5 million GameStop call options were indeed his.
“[GameStop] becomes a bet on the veterans, you know—in particular, of course, Ryan Cohen,” Gill said. “I think we’ve seen enough from him to think he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”
Gill was instrumental in GameStop’s initial surge in January 2021, when his Reddit posts and livestreams helped generate enough interest from memestock traders to push the ailing video-game retailer’s stock price up well over 1,000%. After disappearing for three years, Gill’s Twitter account began posting cryptic images and movie stills earlier this month, igniting another rally that more than doubled GameStop’s share price at its peak.
When Gill announced that he would be appearing on a livestream this morning, GameStop’s share price jumped nearly 30%—making Gill a billionaire on paper based on the value of his call options. However, the stock retreated by 25% by the time the stream began, and fell a further 12% during the stream, erasing his prior gains.
Gill commented on reports that brokerage platform E*Trade was considering banning him from the platform, using his browser’s HTML function to remove the E*Trade logo from his account’s dashboard.
“I’ve seen those headlines, E*Trade,” Gill said. “I’m checking in every day. I’ll log in. I’m like, my position is still there. Are they still there? Let me check it. They’re still there.”
