Keith Gill, the meme stock investor who goes by the handle Roaring Kitty on social media, is credited with helping raise the stock price of GameStop in recent weeks. Now, it appears the former financial analyst's influence on Thursday boosted some pet-focused companies.
Early this afternoon, Roaring Kitty posted an image of a cartoon dog — with no accompanying text — on his account on X, the former Twitter. Soon after, shares of Chewy, Petco and PetMed Express spiked. Chewy's shares, which opened at $28.85 on Thursday, jumped as high as $39.10 after Gill's post, or a gain of 36%. However, shares of the pet supply company retreated later in the afternoon, closing at $29.05.
Petco's shares rose as high as 14%, while PetMed's stock gained 10%. Shares of those companies also gave up most of their gains by the close of Thursday trading.
Chewy, Petco and PetMed Express didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Gill's post comes one 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 is no stranger to watching the markets move after posting cryptic images on social media. Last month, he posted an image of a sketched man leaning forward in a chair, marking the end of a roughly three-year hiatus from social media. He followed that post with several others featuring various comeback-themed videos featuring movie clips and charged music.
In 2020, Gill's online influence surged after he encouraged people to invest in GameStop, whose shares he had started buying the previous year and which soared in the meme-stock frenzy of 2021. His social media platforms of choice: Reddit discussion boards and YouTube, where he posted videos about his takes on financial markets and undervalued stocks.
"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.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.
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