Roaring Kitty is posting again and GameStop is surging again

There’s something unusual going on in shares of GameStop right meow.

On Sunday evening, Keith Gill, aka The Roaring Kitty aka DeepFuckingValue, tweeted an image of someone leaning forward in their chair.

What are we supposed to be paying attention to? Well, this:

Gill was the guru of the GameStop moment that saw shares of the beleaguered video game retailer rise almost 800% over the span of just five days in January 2021, while a hedge fund that bet against the company lost 53% during the month. 

For years, he was a fixture on social media. On YouTube (as The Roaring Kitty), he explained the fundamental arguments for his long positions in GameStop, first initiated in June 2019. In the r/wallstreetbets subreddit (as u/DeepFuckingValue),  he provided monthly updates of his positioning along with more color commentary. Gill had done the due diligence (or ‘DD’ in wallstreetbets parlance) that others were happy to use as the intellectual justification for their own frenzied buying of GameStop shares and call options as the stock began to rise.

As Gill would later say in testimony before Congress, “I like the stock.”

Last week, Gill also “liked” a post on X, formerly Twitter, from the movie “Run Lola Run”, which has been interpreted on some message boards as blessing the idea that GameStop shares have room to run to the upside.

So far, this is a faint echo of the 2021 (and even 2022) levels of price action and activity in GameStop.

What’s the same as 2021? Shares of GameStop are surging, and it doesn’t have much to do with any perceived positive change in the company’s operations. 

(Based on the price action, it’s clear that Gill’s return to social media, even without saying a word, has people feeling better about the stock’s prospects, if not the company’s).

What’s different? As of the end of April, GameStop has more short interest as a percent of equity float (24%) than most stocks – but it’s a far cry from the more than 100% of shares sold short entering 2021, before the stock went parabolic.

In other words, there’s less potential buying power from people who have to admit they were wrong and close up bets against the stock if it goes up this time.

GameStop reports earnings on June 7.