news
01 Jul 2024
Keith Gill, the meme stock investor who sent GameStop shares surging during the pandemic, has taken out a multimillion stake in Chewy.
Gill, who goes by the moniker "Roaring Kitty" on X and "DeepF------Value" on Reddit, bought more than 9 million shares of the online pet supply giant, according to a regulatory filing posted Monday. Based on Chewy's share price Friday, which was $27.24, Gill's purchase means he now has a $245 million stake in the company. Chewy's stock price surged as much as 15% Monday on news of Gill's investment.
Chewy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
That investment comes a week after, Gill posted an image of a cartoon dog with no accompanying text on his Roaring Kitty X account. The post gave shares of Chewy, PetMed Express and Petco a temporary jolt.
Gill's puppy post came a day after Chewy announced it would spend $500 million to repurchase 17.5 million of its own shares. Companies typically buy back shares to boost their per-share earnings or to increase returns for existing shareholders.
Roaring Kitty has become known for making the markets move simply by posting cryptic images on social media. Last month, after the end of a roughly three-year hiatus from social media, Roaring Kitty once again caused GameStop shares to soar after it posted an image of a sketched man leaning forward in a chair on X. The post was followed by several others, featuring various comeback-themed videos and movie clips with charged music.
Gill's online influence was established in 2021, after he rallied hordes of amateur investors online to invest in the struggling video game retailer GameStop, causing shares — which Gill had started buying the previous year — to soar, in what became known as the first meme-stock frenzy.
"I believed [GameStop] was dramatically undervalued by the market," Gill said in testifying before the House Financial Services Committee in 2021. "The prevailing analysis about GameStop's impending doom was simply wrong."
To be sure, Gill profited after promoting the purchase of GameStop shares, but he also later lost big. In 2021, for example, Gill revealed that he had lost $13 million in a single day when shares of the game retailer retreated.
Gill's investments in GameStop eventually became a cornerstone storyline in the 2023 film "Dumb Money," where Gill is portrayed by actor Paul Dano.