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Roughly $390 million worth of GameStop shares had changed hands
by 5:53 a.m. ET (0953 GMT), more than the $343 million in Wall
Street favourite Nvidia , according to LSEG data.
It was the first post in three years from Gill's Reddit account,
where screenshots of his bullish GameStop trades had in 2021
triggered a rush of demand for "meme stocks" - often companies
with weak fundamentals that gained a cult-like following through
social media hype.
The screenshot posted on Sunday showed a GameStop holding of 5
million, or 1.8% of its publicly available stock. It also showed
$65.7 million worth of GameStop call options, typically bought
to express a bullish view, expiring on June 21 at a strike price
of $20.
The stock closed at $23 on Friday, up about 33% since Gill began
sharing cryptic posts and memes from his "Roaring Kitty" account
on X.com in May, sparking speculation over whether he would
resume sharing his trades online after the hiatus.
"Keith Gill is putting his money where his tweets are, and some
investors are clearly following his lead and rekindling interest
in meme stocks," said Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at
digital brokerage eToro.
GameStop was trending no. 1 on investor-focused social media
platform stocktwits.com, indicating increased chatter among
individual traders, while fellow meme stock AMC added 26%.
Tupperware, SunPower Corp and U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry
rose between 6% and 13%.
Monday's surge also put GameStop short sellers on track to rack
up nearly $1 billion in paper losses, according to data and
analytics firm Ortex Technologies.
GameStop has been grappling with slowing sales as its core
business of selling new and pre-owned videogame disks takes a
hit from consumers moving to downloading games digitally or
streaming.
Reuters could not verify the screenshot and Gill did not respond
to a request for comment on Reddit or email.
Reddit shares jumped 5.6%, while retail trader-focused brokerage
Robinhood gained 3.3%.
Gill's last post from April 2021, titled "final update", showed
a holding of 200,000 GameStop shares worth $30.9 million.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Amanda Cooper; Editing by Varun H
K and Devika Syamnath)
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