Keith Gill, the meme stock investor who goes by Roaring Kitty on social media, is credited helping to raise GameStop's stock price in recent weeks. Now, it appears the former financial analyst's influence on Thursday boosted some pet-focused companies.
Earlier this afternoon, Roaring Kitty posted an image of a cartoon dog, with no text attached, to her account on X, the old Twitter. Soon after, shares of Chewy, Petco and PetMed Express rose. Chewy's shares, which opened Thursday at $28.85, jumped to $39.10 after Gill's post, or a 36% gain. However, shares of the pet supply company retreated later in the afternoon, closing at $29.05.
Petco shares rose as much as 14%, while PetMed shares gained 10%. Shares of those companies also gave up most of their gains at the close of trading on Thursday.
Chewy, Petco and PetMed Express did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Gill's post comes a day after Chewy announced it would spend $500 million to buy back 17.5 million of its own shares. Companies usually buy stock to increase their earnings per share or to increase returns for existing shareholders.
Roaring Kitty is no stranger to seeing markets move after posting cryptic pictures on social media. Last month he posted one image of a cartoon man leaning forward in a chair, marking the end of a roughly three-year hiatus from social media. He followed this post with several others with several comeback themed videos loaded with movie clips and music.
In 2020, Gill's online influence soared after he encouraged people to invest in GameStop, whose stock he had started buying the year before and which soared in the 2021 meme frenzy. His favorite social media platforms: Reddit discussion boards and YouTube, where he posted videos about his views on financial markets and undervalued stocks.
“I believed [GameStop] was drastically undervalued by the market,” Gill said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee in 2021. “The prevailing analysis of GameStop's impending doom was simply wrong.”
Sure Gill profited after promoting the purchase of GameStop stock, but he also lost a lot later. In 2021, for example, Gill revealed that he had lost $13 million in a single day when the game retailer's stock was withdrawn.
Gill's investments in GameStop eventually became a pivotal storyline in the 2023 film “Dumb Money,” where Gill is played by actor Paul Dano.
