It’s Roaring Kitty again.
Keith Gill, who gained national attention for his optimistic Reddit analysis of GameStop during the pandemic, posted his first social media update on the X service in three years. It was a cryptic message intended to indicate he was following along.
On Reddit’s GameStop message board, a user exclaimed, “My god it’s him, he’s really back.” “To give a heart attack to a hedgefund bitch. to induce insomnia in a million apes. The guy who isn’t a cat is the one 😉
During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, which was looking into the stock’s extreme volatility, Gill famously said he wasn’t a cat.
GameStop shares GME, -3.05% rose as high as $483 in the heady days of 2021, as chronicled in the movie Dumb Money, but have lost most of their meme allure. Yet the stock has been hurtling higher over the last month, rising nearly 70% from its April lows.
GameStop shares surged 18% in premarket trade on Monday.
Even AMC Entertainment AMC, -4.59%, a fellow meme stock, saw a 7% increase in shares thanks to the gains.
Similar to the previous instance, it appears that investors are placing bets opposing short sellers of the stock. According to S&P Capital IQ, the short percentage of outstanding GameStop shares is 21%; however, this is still significantly less than the 140% at the company’s peak in 2021.
In its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on February 3, GameStop did record its best earnings per share performance in three years. However, the company, led by Chairman and CEO Ryan Cohen, chose not to hold a conference call to discuss the results.
FactSet estimates that Cohen’s RC Ventures vehicle owns roughly 12% of the business.
On a 4% drop in sales, analysts predict GameStop to report an operating margin of slightly over 2% for this fiscal year. Only three analysts are reportedly following the stock, according to FactSet.
In an effort to transform its business and establish itself as the “leading destination for games and entertainment products,” the company—which runs 2,915 stores in the United States and 1,254 abroad—is taking on rivals such as Walmart WMT, +0.07%, Target TGT, -0.72%, and Best Buy BBY, +0.01%.
