A single JPEG has catalyzed yet another rabid surge in the stock price of the video game store GameStop: its price jumped by more than 70% on Monday morning.
On the evening of Sunday, May 12, a man named Keith Gill posted an illustration on X of a man bolting upright in his chair. Gill, who goes by handle Roaring Kitty, is something of a digital folk hero to many amateur investors—he was one of the major catalysts of the WallStreetBets craze of 2021. His reappearance and the subsequent enthusiasm—coupled with other rising “meme stocks”—suggest that the U.S. is fully in the midst of another period of meme stock frenzy, in which small-scale investors rally together to push the stock market in unpredictable ways. On Monday, GameStop’s shares briefly passed $36—its highest price since August 2022—and were halted multiple times for volatility. And GameStop topped both Google and X’s top trends list.
In late 2020, Gill became renowned for his stock market advice on YouTube and the subreddit Wall Street Bets. In particular, he advised his fellow investors to buy GameStop shares, believing that they were undervalued. Some major Wall Street institutions, conversely, were betting on GameStop to fail, as a declining number of people went to physical stores to buy video games, instead purchasing them online.
But a sprawling online community soon rallied around Gill’s thesis, hyping up GameStop with memes and other posts on social media. Millions of everyday people soon bought shares, pushing its price to unprecedented heights and punishing the hedge funds who had bet against it. GameStop soon became the textbook definition of a “meme stock,” or a stock whose value was driven more so by social media enthusiasm as opposed to any sort of underlying financial metrics. The GameStop saga showed Wall Street traditionalists that coordinated small-scale retail investors could have an outsize impact on the stock market.
Read More: Dumb Money and the Complicated Legacy of GameStop
Interest in meme stocks waned after a few months, and Gill mostly disappeared from public life. In September 2023, his story was canonized in the Hollywood film Dumb Money, in which he was played by Paul Dano. The film portrays Gill’s unwavering belief in his investments, and his refusal to sell shares even when they were worth millions of dollars—because many other investors looked to him as the leader of a movement and would only sell if he did first.
Gill’s X account lay dormant for nearly three years. But on Sunday, the cartoon of a man sitting upright seemed to signal that he was once again ready to jump into the investing fray and rally fellow traders into another mission. The image accrued 14 million views and 77,000 likes in 15 hours. The next morning, he posted several more memes from pop culture, including of a resurgent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Breaking Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston) growling, “We’re done when I say we’re done.”
The actual company GameStop hasn’t been performing particularly well. In March, GameStop slashed its workforce and reported lower year-over-year fourth quarter revenue, as it faced continued competition from online retailers and weak consumer spending.
But its stock’s resurgence comes in the midst of a larger spike of activity in meme stocks. Crypto meme coins have seen significant trading volume over recent months, and jumped once again following Gill’s post. Other meme stocks also jumped, including AMC, which increased 22%, and Reddit, which increased 13%.
Speculative stocks typically see increased activity when the economy is strong, and people feel like they have money to gamble with. Many participants in the WallStreetBets craze also felt like they were waging a symbolic war against Wall Street and its control of the financial system. Many individuals certainly made a lot of money. But whether the larger collective mission was successful has been hotly debated. “The whole GameStop thing: they lost,” Kyla Scanlon, an economics analyst and content creator, told TIME last year. “It’s very hard to beat the stock market.”
FAQs
Gill was one of the main posters on the WallStreetBets subreddit - a thread where Reddit users can post on a particular topic - which drove eye-popping rises in GameStop's stock in 2021. Retail investors bid up the shares, targeting short-sellers, who had been betting on GameStop's stock falling.
Why is GameStop stock skyrocketing? ›
Rise in stock price and volume
In January 2021, Reddit users on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit built the foundations for a short squeeze on GameStop, pushing up the stock price significantly. This occurred shortly after a comment from Citron Research predicting the value of the stock would decrease.
Why is GameStop stock blowing up? ›
Instead, it was largely retail investors congregating on forums like Reddit's WallStreetBets driving up share prices, with the movement reignited by a series of Sunday and Monday posts to X from “Roaring Kitty,” the account belonging to 37-year-old Keith Gill which became the mascot of 2021's meteoric gains from the ...
Did the GameStop short squeeze work? ›
The normie GameStop investors who recognized the opportunity for a short squeeze were right — the stock was over-shorted, they saw their chance, and they seized it. The episode took out Melvin Capital — even after getting extra money injected, the hedge fund eventually went under.
Is GameStop actually a good investment? ›
Currently, GameStop Corp's price-earnings ratio is 294.5. GameStop Corp's trailing 12-month revenue is $4.9 billion with a 0.5% profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was -28.7%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $-0.100 per share for the current fiscal year.
Who owns the most GameStop stock? ›
What percentage of GameStop (GME) stock is held by retail investors? According to the latest TipRanks data, approximately 63.34% of GameStop (GME) stock is held by retail investors. Who owns the most shares of GameStop (GME)? Vanguard owns the most shares of GameStop (GME).
How high will GME go? ›
By 2030, conservative expert forecasts suggest that GME's stock could potentially reach $31.47, reflecting significant long-term growth. Again, Coincodex is more bullish about GME's long-term prospects. According to its latest forecasts, GME stock could see a 1900x increase to reach a maximum valuation of $807.
Why is GameStop struggling? ›
The company said it is struggling to sell hardware in its stores around the world as more and more games are downloaded digitally if not simply ordered online. The next round of closures is set to be even more drastic than the shrinkage the company experienced this past year.
Why did GME jump? ›
GameStop shares soared Tuesday. The company announced Friday that it had made around $933 million from a stock sale. Shares in GameStop rallied earlier this month after the social media account behind 2021′s meme stock short squeeze posted for the first time since then.
Who is shorting GME? ›
Citron Research founder Andrew Left is back to shorting GameStop (NYSE:GME) after realizing a significant loss in 2021 doing the same thing. In fact, he shorted GME stock last month following the return of Roaring Kitty on social media but closed his position, only to restart it again.
GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) is considered the king of meme stocks and most of the investing literature that can be found around the stock revolves around its meme feature. The purpose of this discussion is to present an analysis of the company's fundamentals beyond its fading meme feature.
Why is GameStop climbing again? ›
The surge followed the reemergence on Sunday of a Reddit account associated with Keith Gill, the trader known as Roaring Kitty, whose online posts helped send the stock soaring in 2021.
Why is GameStop stock crashing? ›
Shares of video game retailer GameStop (NYSE:GME) fell 14.8% in the morning session after the company reported second-quarter earnings results. Its revenue unfortunately declined and missed by a wide margin, consistent with the broader weakness we've observed in the Consumer sector during the quarter.
Will GME ever go back up? ›
No one can say for sure if GameStop will ever return to its 2021 highs of over $80 a share. As of 7 October 2022, algorithm forecaster Wallet Investor predicted GME could reach $82.04 in May 2026, while Gov Capital had it at a similar level of $82.03 by November 2024.
Where did Roaring Kitty get his money? ›
As Roaring Kitty, notably, Gill was posting videos at a time when Americans were stuck indoors during the pandemic, leading some to try their hands at investing. To be sure, Gill earned a lot of money after promoting the purchase of GameStop shares, but he also lost big.
Is GameStop in financial trouble? ›
GameStop remains a hot property among retail investors eager to snap up the "meme stock," but its financial results continue to cool. The video game seller on Friday reported a loss of $32.3 million on revenue of $882 million in its fiscal first quarter, with declining sales of hardware, software and collectibles.
What is meant by short squeeze? ›
Short squeeze is a term used to describe a phenomenon in financial markets where a sharp rise in the price of an asset forces traders who previously sold short to close out their positions. The strong buying pressure “squeezes” the short sellers out of the market.
