Similar buzz pushed GameStop to nearly $50 a share in May. Roaring Kitty had posted several memes on X, starting with a picture of a man leaning forward in his chair to post on a smartphone, over several days. By month’s end, though, enthusiasm cooled, and the stock closed Friday at $23.14.
After the Sunday posts — which have not been independently verified by The Washington Post — shares popped, opening Monday at $40.19. But the stock gave up most of those gains, closing at $28.00, up 21 percent.
GET CAUGHT UP
Summarized stories to quickly stay informed
Gill is a former life insurance marketer who rose to meme-stock fame by rallying other Redditors behind what is known as a short-squeeze strategy. He was at the center of an online movement in which retail traders, industry parlance for individuals who invest in companies, took on hedge fund behemoths that had betted on the company’s failure. The stock rose so precipitously at one point that shares were halted on popular smartphone trading apps.
Gill did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Both posts were celebrated in Reddit’s “Superstonk” channel, which has become a leading meme-stock forum after some GameStop enthusiasts broke with the popular “WallStreetBets” channel. Gill’s account notably did not post in that channel, although the same user account was used. On Monday morning, the channel abounded with memes and users posting their own positions, with some promising to call in sick to work.
GameStop has sought various ways to capitalize on the online fame, but it remains primarily a brick-and-mortar seller of video games in a world where cloud-based offerings such as Steam are dominant. In 2022, it launched a marketplace for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, but as of Monday the marketplace was still marked as a beta version and carried a disclaimer that its iOS and Chrome extension wallets were being removed “due to regulatory uncertainty in the crypto space.”
It reported a preliminary loss of between $27 million and $37 million for the 13-week quarter ending May 4. Net sales were estimated between $872 million and $892 million, down from $1.3 billion in last year’s first quarter.
In its latest maneuver, GameStop took advantage of the May rally by raising more than $900 million in a stock sale.
Gamestop’s gains defied an otherwise tepid start to June trading for U.S. markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding more than 115 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 38,571.03. The S&P 500 edged 0.1 percent up, to 5,283.40, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 0.6 percent, to 16,828.67. Wall Street had a strong May, powered largely by corporate earnings, with all three indexes recording their sixth positive month in seven.
Berkshire Hathaway’s shares were briefly halted during trading Monday after a technical issue caused the stock of Warren Buffett’s conglomerate to appear as though it had plunged nearly 100 percent for much of the morning session, according to the New York Stock Exchange. The issue was resolved by early afternoon, at which point Berkshire Hathaway’s shares were down 0.4 percent.