Man at Center of Stock Craze Resurfaces

The man at the center of the pandemic meme stock craze appeared online for the first time in three years, sending the prices of those quirky and volatile stocks sharply higher Monday. Keith Gill, better known as "Roaring Kitty," posted an image Sunday of a man sitting forward in his chair, a meme used by gamers when things are getting serious. GameStop in 2021 was a video game retailer that was struggling to survive as consumers switched rapidly from discs to digital downloads. Gill and those who agreed with him changed the trajectory of a company that appeared to be headed for bankruptcy, the AP reports.

At Monday's opening bell it appeared that Gill had reignited that phenomenon as shares of GameStop more than doubled at the opening bell and were trading 60% higher at midday. It's the biggest intraday trading jump for GameStop since the meme craze in 2021.

• Gill became a cause célèbre in 2021 after his posts on the Reddit subcategory Wallstreetbets ignited a battle between thousands of smaller retail investors and large hedge funds that were betting heavily against the survival of GameStop, shorting its stock.
• The small guys won, at least for a while, driving shares of GameStop up more than 1,000% in 2021, and other meme stocks as well. The struggling movie theater chain AMC jumped 2,300% in the same year. And some big traders lost billions. Citron Research, Melvin Capital and other well-known hedge funds lost an estimated $5 billion on the other side of the trade in 2021, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.
• It wasn't only GameStop that caught fire Monday. Some of the same meme stocks that recorded astronomical gains back in 2021 surged as well. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. leapt 33%. Koss Co. a headphone manufacturer, spiked 25% and BlackBerry, the one time dominant smartphone maker, rose 7%. The retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, another meme stock, sought bankruptcy protection last year.

(More meme stock stories.)