The GameStop stock (NYSE: GME) saga continues this week with the annual shareholder meeting taking place today (11:30 a.m. CDT). The rescheduled meeting is expected to garner a lot of attention if last week's attempt is anything to go by.
In what might feel like a whirlwind couple of months since the ‘return' of Roaring Kitty to the scene, take a thought for longer term holders of the stock that have been there following the story since 2021.
GameStop shareholders expecting to tune in to the shareholder meeting last week on 13th June were left disappointed, as technical difficulties with Computershare, the third party hosting site meant the meeting had to be immediately adjourned. An overload of interest from shareholders was said to be the cause of the technical issues.
“Unprecedented demand from shareholders wanting to access GameStop’s Annual General Meeting led to a technical issue that prevented some investors from getting through, and the meeting was adjourned,”
Computershare
What is to come next is outside of our scope, but the success Mr Gill has had since returning to social media has been worthy of note.
Roaring Kitty's Cryptic Communication Style
Unlike before, Roaring Kitty's impact on the digital community is being felt not through direct commentary on the stock market but through cryptic movie memes, and a live stream that has now been seen by millions. Keith Gill, the figure behind the Roaring Kitty alias and a pivotal player in the notorious 2021 GameStop run, has chosen nostalgia-inducing cinema references over stock charts to communicate with his audience.
Gill's disappearance from the limelight had left a void in the social media sphere, particularly among retail investors who viewed his inputs as insightful during the GameStop saga. His unexpected return has naturally reignited substantial interest, sparking discussions and speculation over the possible meanings behind the curated selection of Hollywood clips and television references.
With each meme shared, Roaring Kitty sets the stage for a flurry of speculation, as individuals and analysts alike ponder on the subtleties of his chosen media snippets. Market observers are left deciphering whether these tweets are whimsical expressions of his personal affinity for particular films or if they carry deeper strategic implications.
Roaring Kitty's tweets have historically led to a cascade of volumetric surges in GameStop's trading. Whether these shared memes are simply a nod to his favourite movies or a signal to his legion of followers remains a subject of debate.
In the few years that Roaring Kitty was off screens, there have been short periods of spiking activity in volume for GameStop shares, but nothing until this point that had resembled anywhere close to 2021. March 2022 brought a period of increased activity, with as many as 98 million shares trading hands in one day. Since then, barring a few exceptions, the volume had decreased, and through Q1 of 2024 many days had trading volumes ~3million with the highest volume day in March up at 17,871,300.
Fast forward two and a half months and we now see 11 trading days (out of 24) where the volume traded has been in excess of 100 million. The activity has certainly increased since Roaring Kitty's return, and so has his own shareholding of the stock according to recent screenshots. The latest number shown, puts Keith Gill's holdings of GME up at 9,001,000, making him the fourth highest shareholder in the company.
Many will tuning in today to the GameStop shareholder meeting, with anticipation palpable over what might be noted as far as intended uses of recent funds raised. With the company now sitting on a very sizeable chunk of cash, and the previous short selling thesis of bankruptcy now off the table, shareholders will be hoping to get some idea as to what the future of GameStop may be.
