Keith Gill, the investor and meme stock booster known by his social media persona “Roaring Kitty,” held his first YouTube livestream in almost three years on Friday.
GameStop shares were down 32% Friday morning prior to the start of the livestream, dragged down by the video game retailer’s disclosure of plunging sales and millions in losses. After 26 minutes of delay, the highly anticipated stream opened with clips of kittens playing with balls of yarn and roaring, with shots of Gill sitting at his computer. The stock remained volatile as Gill spoke to the more than 600,000 viewers that were tuned into the stream, plunging 40% by the end of the stream.
“No real game plan here, just wanted to hop in and see what’s poppin’,” Gill said. The livestream featured a screen share of Gill’s positions showing him down $235 million at 1 p.m.
Trading in the stock was quickly halted, as it has been several times during the latest meme stock frenzy. Gill took the opportunity to reassure watchers that he continues to invest independently in GameStop.
“Those are my positions, I’m not working with anybody else, I’m not working with hedge funds. It’s like the same stuff as last time,” he said.
The stock closed down almost 40% on the day, to $28.22 per share.
“GameStop finds itself in a very unique situation,” Gill said, adding that it’s “highly unusual” for a company to have so many people rooting for it. He praised CEO Ryan Cohen’s approach to managing the company’s popularity among retail investors.
“He seems to be doing the right things,” Gill said. “I think we’ve seen enough from him to think he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”
Gill gained national attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for his bullish analysis of GameStop on Reddit (where he goes by DeepF———Value), and drove the first short-squeeze of the video game retailer’s stock in early 2021. At the time, its shares surged more than 1,000% in a matter of weeks.
He kicked off a renewed meme stock frenzy around GameStop stock last month, when he broke his three-year social media hiatus by posting a meme on X that fans interpreted as a signal to start buying up the retailer’s shares.
While the initial meme stock excitement fizzled out faster than it did in 2021, Gill revived it again this week. In a post on Reddit forum r/Superstonk on Sunday, Gill revealed that he owns 5 million GameStop shares, which would have been worth almost $116 million as of last Friday’s closing price, and 120,000 in options. He later posted a picture of the reverse card from the card game “Uno” on X.
Gill said during his livestream Friday that those are his “only positions.” He also confirmed positions are still on E*Trade, which has been weighing removing Gill from its platform over concerns of stock manipulation.
When Gill said he was going to end the stream, the stock dipped to trade down 40% on the day. In 2021, his streams ranged from anywhere between three to seven hours.
The announcement of the livestream on Thursday sent GameStop stock soaring more than 40% in anticipation of Gill’s YouTube return. GameStop stock is up 65% year-to-date.
Hours before Friday’s livestream, GameStop unexpectedly reported its first-quarter earnings, which had been scheduled for June 11. GameStop’s net sales plunged 28% to $881.8 million in the 13 weeks ended May 4, from $1.24 billion in the same period last year, the company reported before the bell on Friday. It had a net loss of 32.3 million for the quarter, narrower than its $50.5 million in losses a year ago. GameStop had projected falling sales in a regulatory filing last month.
In a separate filing Friday, the company revealed that it is planning to sell up to 75 million additional shares of its common stock. It warned that the common price of its stock “has been extremely volatile and may continue to be volatile due to numerous circumstances beyond our control,” including short squeezes. Last month, the company said it was planning a sale of 45 million additional shares of its class A common stock.
