[imagesource:ktla/facebook]

The legend returns. Roaring Kitty, aka Keith Gill, made headlines last month when his account on X sprung back to life.

After nearly three years of silence, Roaring Kitty’s account started posting a series of memes and crypto video excerpts, and while it’s hard to figure out what exactly any of them mean, the consensus is that Roaring Kitty is back in business, and stock traders have taken notice.

The return of the guy who made Wall Street sweat propelled the value of GME to new yearly highs, but the price swiftly returned to previous levels as nobody is really sure what he is up to.

This Sunday, he may have given a clue as to why he returned. Roaring Kitty posted a screenshot on Reddit’s Superstonk subreddit indicating that he has a massive position in GME once again, with $115.7 million (R2.1 billion) worth of the stock, with an additional $65.7 million (R1.2 billion) worth of call options, allowing him to purchase GME stock at the price of $20 on June 21.

He accompanied this post with another post on X, consisting only of a Uno “reversal” card, which changes the direction of the Uno game when played.

pic.twitter.com/zUuccrKWZr

— Roaring Kitty (@TheRoaringKitty) June 3, 2024

While there’s no way of knowing whether Roaring Kitty really holds the positions he unveiled in that screenshot, the market is already reacting, with fans of the stock on Reddit calling it a “historic” moment.

Even GameStop cashed in on the interest, raising $933 million in a share sale.

Roaring Kitty, or Keith to his family, became somewhat of a cult hero after ‘flipping the script on Wall Street’ and getting super rich by turning the dying GameStop into one of the world’s hottest companies. Described as the “ultimate David vs. Goliath tale”, his shenanigans were the subject of a Netflix doccie as well as the recent Seth Rogan movie Dumb Money.

Gill achieved fame by leading an army of small investors, all of who kept buying GME stock until they pushed the price of GME to as high as $120. This unexpected surge in the struggling firm’s shares, created a financial squeeze on professional Wall Street firms that had bet against the retailer, even resulting in the liquidation of hedge fund giant Melvin Capital, which had a large short position in GME.

Screwing over Wall Street made Roaring Kitty a hero, and his return to the headlines will have hedge fund managers nervously pacing the halls.

With markets rising again this year, trading firms such as Charles Schwab and Robinhood have reported another uptick in new accounts and activity by retail investors – people not working for investment houses or other private firms.

Folks like former financial regulator Jay Clayton, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission under former President Donald Trump, also seem nervous.

“It bothers me on many levels,” he said. “It’s a lot closer to gambling than it is to trading and it’s certainly not investing. Is this something we should be tolerating in our markets?”

That’s a good question, but perhaps it needs to be directed at the goliaths of Wall Street.

Meanwhile, it seems Roaring Kitty has managed to turn his GME spoils into hundreds of millions of dollars. With that much roar, who knows what the kitty is up to?

[source:bbc&mashable]