(Bloomberg) — GameStop Corp. shares more than doubled after the Reddit account that drove the meme-stock mania of 2021 posted what appeared to be a $116 million position in the game retailer.
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The June 2 screenshot by Keith Gill, who goes by DeepF— Value on Reddit, shows five million shares bought at $21.27 apiece. It was the account’s first post in three years. The screenshot, which also included 120,000 call options worth $65.7 million due to expire on June 21, couldn’t be verified. The options would allow him to buy the stock at $20 a share.
GameStop shares rose as much as 105% in premarket trading on Monday, before paring some of that advance. If premarket gains hold, the stock would be set to add about $8 billion to its market capitalization.
Other stocks favored by retail traders also got a boost. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. rose as much as 36% in premarket trading, while SunPower Corp., Beyond Meat Inc., BlackBerry Ltd. and Reddit Inc. were also stronger.
On social media platform X, Gill, using his account handle “Roaring Kitty,” also posted an image of an UNO reverse card, which is used by players in the game to change the card-pickup direction. The post had attracted about 5.5 million views in the nine hours since its publication at about 8 p.m. Sunday New York time.
“Recent renewed interest in meme stocks, coming as the main US indices struggle to make new highs, is a sign of excessive over exuberance and is more likely a negative portent given the rising headwinds in the markets,” said Robert Lea, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
Gill had largely been silent on social media since he rallied day-traders on Reddit in 2021 to buy the stock to push back on short sellers, arguing then that the company was poised to “reinvent” itself as a premier gaming hub.
In mid-May, he returned to X with an image of a video gamer leaning in, fueling anticipation that he will actively return to the market.
GameStop shares have fallen more than 50% since a two-day rally triggered by his mid-May post. The stock famously soared more than 2,000% in early 2021, bringing the meme-stock frenzy into the broader public consciousness.
In his last previous post on Reddit on April 16, 2021, Gill posted a screenshot that showed he held 200,000 GameStop shares, or about $30.9 million worth at the time.
Gill posted his latest Reddit post on r/Superstonk subforum on Reddit, which is “a place for theoretical discussions about GameStop stock.”
–With assistance from Farah Elbahrawy.
(Updates with meme-stock peers in fourth paragraph)
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