MICHELLE PRICE
KEITH Gill, the office worker who shot to notoriety after his online personas and bullish bets on GameStop sparked a retail trading frenzy, appears to be re-emerging from obscurity.
Known as "Roaring Kitty" on YouTube and "DeepF***ingValue" on Reddit's popular WallStreetBets, Gill was a key figure in the so-called "Reddit rally" in which shares of GameStop surged 1,600 percent at one point in January 2021, crushing hedge funds that had bet against the videogame retailer.
But after drawing congressional and regulatory scrutiny for his role in the extraordinary saga, Gill quickly disappeared, albeit much richer thanks to his GameStop investment which at one point reached US$48 million in value.
For three years, his accounts on YouTube, X, and Reddit lay dormant. He did no media interviews and when filmmakers came knocking, he declined to participate in their projects.
Then out of the blue, he appeared in recent weeks to resurface online, sending GameStop's shares soaring once again.
On Monday, they rose 21 percent after his Reddit account posted a screenshot showing a US$116 million bet on the stock.
On Thursday, they surged almost 50 percent after his YouTube account scheduled a livestream for noon Eastern Time (1600 GMT) on Friday.
The post, featuring his trademark cat, sparked a deluge of excited messages from his followers; many likened the social media phenomenon to a David who took on Wall Street's Goliaths and won.
"I will watch this screen without blinking all night," a user with the handle Clay DeNicola posted on Gill's YouTube channel on Thursday.
Born in 1986 to a truck driver and nurse, Gill grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts."I grew up playing videogames and shopping at GameStop," he told lawmakers in a 2021 hearing.
He graduated from Stonehill College in 2009 and between 2010 and 2014, worked at a start-up where he tried to build software to help investors analyze shares, according to his testimony.
"My salary never exceeded US$40,000, but I did learn something about investing. I learned how to do the tedious work of digging through a company's financials and focusing on its real long-term value."
While unemployed in 2017, Gill, a husband and father, began analyzing stocks and investing his savings, an interest he "pursued passionately" even after taking on a marketing and financial education job at MassMutual in April 2019.
When in early June GameStop's shares fell on worse-than-expected earnings, he spied an opportunity. Believing the stock was trading below its fair value, he bought GME options and from there continued to add to his position, he said.
He began sharing his positions on WallStreetBets in September 2019, posting a screenshot indicating he had invested US$53,000 in GameStop.With exuberant YouTube streams in which he frequently wore a bright red pirate bandana as he made the bull case for GameStop, and Reddit posts touting his positions, he helped to attract a flood of retail cash into the beleaguered bricks-and-mortar retailer.
By late January 2021, he was up over 4,000 percent on stock and options in the company, with his GameStop position plus cash worth nearly US$48 million, according to his posts.
In an April 16, 2021, WallStreetBets post, which would be his last for three years, he shared screenshots showing he had exercised call options on GameStop to acquire 50,000 more shares in the retailer, sparking thousands of comments lauding the punchy move.
Now that he is back in the limelight, he is also back in the crosshairs.
The Massachusetts securities regulator, which had opened and closed a probe into Gill, has said it is again reviewing his activities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is also reviewing his trades, the Wall Street Journal reported.Some have accused Gill of causing huge losses for investors who followed him into GameStop, a claim he has long denied.
"I was abundantly clear that my channel was for educational purposes only, and that my aggressive style of investing was unlikely to be suitable for most folks," he told lawmakers, adding that his investment thesis focused purely on GameStop's fundamentals.
Still, many of his followers were contemplating buying more GameStop shares, with one handle, George Black, asking the group: "Is it too late to buy?"
The writer is from Reuters.