After three years of silence, Keith Gill—the leader behind the famous 2021 GameStop short squeeze—has staged his much-anticipated return to Reddit.
Last night, Gill took to the subreddit Superstonk on his account, @DeepFuckingValue, to post a screenshot of his options positions, claiming that he’s recently made bets of over $116 million in GameStop shares and $63 million in call options.
And this morning, GameStop stock rose as much as 75% in premarket trading. As of late morning on Monday, shares were trading up more than 32%.
Gill’s Reddit resurgence is just the latest in his weeks-long meme-posting campaign that’s led GameStop shares down a wild, head-spinning roller coaster of fluctuations. Here’s the rundown of everything that’s happened in the past few months:
Analyst predicts that GameStop has less than five years to live
On March 27, leading video game analyst Michael Patcher warned investors in a note that GameStop had “a likely runway of no more than five years,” anticipating the company’s doom within the coming decade. His prediction came in light of GameStop’s 2023 fourth quarter revenue, which included a shocking 19% year-over-year decrease in sales.
And while GameStop hasn’t made any significant business moves since March—ultimately, the company still hinges on the outdated mode of packaged video game sales—internet hype has proven a successful tool in stoking the stock’s price to absurd heights.
A single meme reignites the GameStop frenzy
Just two months after Patcher foretold GameStop’s demise, GameStop shares inexplicably rose 60% in the first two weeks of May.
Then, on May 12, Gill took to his Roaring Kitty Twitter (now X) account to post a single meme of a man leaning forward in a chair, which is typically used to signal that something’s coming.
The subtle nod was enough to initiate an internet chain effect that caused GameStop shares to jump up by as much as 179% on May 13 from the close on May 10—the biggest gains in the company’s stock prices since 2021.
The frenzy fizzles out
As quickly as it had come, the hype appeared to trickle back into the ether. On May 17, GameStop announced plans to sell an additional 45 million shares on the open market. In a separate statement, the company said it expected first-quarter sales to range between $872 million to $892 million, considerably lower than the $1.24 billion it made in the same quarter last year and below analyst estimates of $1 billion.
After the lackluster report, the company’s shares lost close to 20% of their value, falling back to where they stood before Gill reentered the picture.
The frenzy is back . . . for now?
Gill’s return to Reddit has stirred the pot once again, pushing his followers to buy in on the meme stock this morning.
But while recent events have inspired flashbacks to 2021, it’s seeming unlikely that we’ll see an actual reprise of that year’s short squeeze, based on how short-lived May 13’s stock surge was. Instead, we may just have to endure the whiplash as GameStop shares continue to soar between the highest of highs and lowest of lows.