Famed meme-stock trader “Roaring Kitty” flopped in a hotly anticipated live YouTube broadcast — failing to stem a selloff in GameStop shares that was sparked by a dismal earnings announcement from the video-game retailer.
Meme stock influencer Keith Gill — also known on Reddit under the handle “DeepF—–gValue” — confirmed his position as a major shareholder of GameStop as he posted a chart on a YouTube livestream showing that he owned 5 million shares of the company as well as 120,000 call options.
“My aggressive style of investing is almost certainly not suitable for y’all,” Gill told his followers on Friday, wearing his trademark headband, wearing sunglasses and taking sips from a large, unidentified beverage.
But Gill said little else that wasn’t already known to prevent the stock from tanking on Friday — and it didn’t help that Gill showed up half an hour late to his own event, leaving 500,000 viewers waiting.
“Those are my positions. I’m not working with anybody else, with hedge funds,” Gill said, obliquely addressing speculation that has recent return after three years of silence was getting backing from big institutions.
“I gotta hop on the stream and just remind people you know,” Gill said. “I’m not an institutional investor.”
News of the livestream sent the company’s stock surging by nearly 50% on Thursday.
But on Friday morning, GameStop revealed a weak earnings report that was rushed out to investors early — ahead of a plan to announce them next Tuesday.
The results were dismal — and brought shares back down to earth.
GameStop managed to narrow its losses in the first quarter, but the video game retailer’s revenue fell as sales weakened for hardware and accessories, software and collectibles.
On his YouTube broadcast, Gill expressed confidence in GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen as the YouTube broadcast displayed a real-time chart GameStop’s shares tanking deeper as he continued to speak.
Shares of GameStop slumped 39% to close at $28.22 following a frenzy earlier this week that was reminiscent of the 2021 market-shaking trend that was powered by retail investors.
Despite Friday’s dip, GameStop shares are up by 61% since the start of the year.
“Roaring Kitty”‘s position was made with a $174 million investment that was revealed on Monday.
Hours later, the surge in the stock price sent the value of his position soaring to $586.4 million.
Gill’s trading methods are reportedly attracting scrutiny from retail trading firms.
ETrade is considering telling Gill he can no longer use its platform after growing concerns about potential stock manipulation amid his recent purchases of GameStop, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Shortly before Gill reignited a meme stock craze in May, he bought a large volume of GameStop options on ETrade, the Journal’s report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
E*Trade-parent Morgan Stanley declined to comment.
GameStop Corp. lost $32.3 million, or 11 cents per share, for the period which ended May 4.
A year earlier, it lost $50.5 million, or 17 cents per share. Its adjusted loss was 12 cents per share.
Quarterly sales dropped to $881.8 million from $1.24 billion a year ago.
The company, which was anticipated to release its quarterly results on Tuesday, said that it would not be holding a conference call on Friday to discuss its financial performance.
GameStop also filed paperwork with securities regulators to sell up to 75 million shares of stock.
In the filing GameStop noted that between Feb. 4 and June 6, the closing price of its stock has ranged between $10.01 and $48.75, and daily trading volume ranged from 1.7 million shares to nearly 207 million shares.
“During such period, we did not experience any material changes in our financial condition or results of operations that would explain such price volatility or trading volume.”
Going back to January 2021, “the market price of our common stock has seen extreme price fluctuations that do not appear to be based on the underlying fundamentals of our business or results of operations.”
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