Finance
Roaring Kitty’s GameStop stake grows to 9 million shares
Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, will host a YouTube livestream on June 7, 2024.
Source: Roaring Kitty | YouTube
Meme stock champ Keith Gill, known online as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared to increase his ownership GameStop‘s common stock and appears to own more than 9 million shares.
Gill posted a new screenshot of his E-Trade portfolio to Reddit’s Superstonk forum after Thursday’s bell, showing he now owns 9.001 million GameStop shares and more than $6 million in cash. On June 2, the first day he started disclosing his position in the meme stock frenzy of 2024, his portfolio numbered 5 million shares and 120,000 call options against GameStop.
Call options give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to purchase shares at a specified price before a specified expiration date.
It is difficult to decipher what exactly Gill did to reach this position. He could have dumped all 120,000 call contracts and used the proceeds to buy the additional shares, or he could have sold some of the huge options position and exercised the rest early.
There was a huge spike Wednesday afternoon in trading volume of GameStop call contracts with a strike price of $20 and an expiration date of June 21, the same one Gill owned. The phenomenon, along with falling prices of GameStop stock and call options, led many to believe Gill had started unloading.
Many had speculated that Gill would not have held these calls until expiration. If Gill wanted to exercise all his calls, he would have needed $240 million to take custody of the shares – 12 million shares purchased at $20 each – far more than he publicly showed in his E-Trade account.
The total value of Gill’s portfolio, including cash, reached more than $268 million Thursday evening, up from $210 million on June 2.
GameStop shares rose more than 14% on Thursday.
The video game retailer’s annual shareholder meeting was disrupted by computer problems on Thursday, when servers crashed amid overwhelming interest in the stream.
GameStop recently raised more than $2 billion through a stock sale as the company capitalized on the revived meme rally. GameStop said it plans to use the money for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions and investments.
