Father who killed one-year-old son with axe may be allowed to travel in southwestern Ontario
A Mennonite father who killed his one-year-old son with an axe may be allowed to travel to parts of southern Ontario in the coming months
The man at the center of the pandemic meme stock craze appeared online for the first time in three years, sending the prices of thee quirky and volatile shares sharply higher Monday.
Keith Gill, better known as "Roaring Kitty," posted an image Sunday on the social platform X of a man sitting forward in his chair, a meme used by gamers when things are getting serious.
He followed that tweet with a YouTube video from years before when he championed the beleaguered company GameStop saying, "That's all for now cuz I'm out of breath. FYI here's a quick 4min video I put together to summarize the $GME bull case."
GameStop in 2021 was a video game retailer that was struggling to survive as consumers switched rapidly from discs to digital downloads. Big Wall Street hedge funds and major investors were betting against it, or shorting its stock, believing that its shares would continue on a drastically downward trend.
Gill and those who agreed with him changed the trajectory of a company that appeared to headed for bankruptcy by buying up thousands of GameStop shares in the face of almost any accepted metrics that told investors that the company was in serious trouble.
That began what is known as a "short squeeze," when those big investors that had bet against GameStop were forced to buy its rapidly rising stock to offset their massive losses.
At Monday's opening bell it appeared that Gill had reignited the phenomenon as shares of GameStop more than doubled. They closed Monday up 74 per cent. It's the biggest intraday trading jump for GameStop since the meme craze of early 2021. Other meme stocks like the theater chain AMC were jolted higher as well.
Trading in GameStop was halted eight times before noon on Monday due to volatility.
Gill became a cause celebre in 2021 after his posts on the Reddit subcategory Wallstreetbets ignited a David vs. Goliath battle with large hedge funds that were betting heavily against the survival of GameStop.
The small guys won, at least for a while, driving shares of GameStop up more than 1,000 per cent in 2021 and other meme stocks as well. The struggling movie theater chain AMC jumped 2,300 per cent in a very short span of time in the same year.
Some big traders posted colossal losses as GameStop raced from less than US$20, to close to $400 each. Citron Research, Melvin Capital and other well-known hedge funds lost an estimated $5 billion, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.
Some of those new and smaller investors believed, at least in part, that Ryan Cohen, co-founder of Chewy.com, could push the traditional retailer in a more online direction. Cohen built up a stake in GameStop before eventually joining the board and last year becoming its CEO.
Joining the meme surge Monday was AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., which leapt 78 per cent. Koss Corp. a headphone manufacturer, spiked 37 per cent and BlackBerry, the one time dominant smartphone maker, rose seven per cent. The retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, another meme stock, sought bankruptcy protection last year.
Some meme stocks, including GameStop and AMC, had been climbing earlier this month, and rapidly.
Shares of GameStop Corp., which have faded steadily since 2021, had already risen 57 per cent this month. In January, GameStop reported its first annual profit since 2018, although it's still unclear if Cohen's turnaround plan will succeed.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., had risen 10 per cent over the past 30 days.
Those companies broke out Monday following Gill's tweet.
The dynamics of the market as far as companies like GameStop are concerned have changed, however.
When Gill and an online army of retail investors began buying up shares of GameStop, more than 140 per cent of the company's tradeable shares were being shorted. You arrive at that distorted number because some traders were borrowing against already shorted stocks to build even bigger bets against the company, vastly increasing their losses when the stock began to climb.
The short positions against GameStop's tradable shares now stand just over 24 per cent, slightly more than the 22.5 per cent recorded in January.
Gill reaped a big profit investing in a troubled video-game company, but denied when he appeared virtually at a Congressional hearing that he used social media to drive up GameStop's stock price.
He told lawmakers at the time simply, "I like the stock."
As Roaring Kitty, Gill had vanished from messaging boards after posting a video in June 2021 of kittens going to sleep.
The story of Roaring Kitty and the meme stock craze was turned into a movie last year called "Dumb Money."
A Mennonite father who killed his one-year-old son with an axe may be allowed to travel to parts of southern Ontario in the coming months
On a tiny island off Panama's Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground.
Former FBI director James Comey says while he believes former U.S. president Donald Trump "will be defeated" in the upcoming presidential election, he doesn’t think it’s a given.
The family of one of Robert Pickton's victims says the convicted serial killer suffered an incredibly violent death at the hands of another inmate.
Few people can say they accidentally purchased a nude beach — but Shelley can. When she saw a piece of land she could fondly remember camping on was up for sale, she inquired about it and ended up purchasing it. She soon found that there were already inhabitants on it.
There's a luxury 'tree home' for sale in Calgary.
A B.C. traveller will receive more than $1,300 in compensation from WestJet for a missed flight connection following a decision from the province's small claims tribunal.
Jennifer Lopez has cancelled her 2024 North American tour, representatives for Live Nation confirmed to The Associated Press.
Two young children and three adults were seriously injured in a major collision on Highway 417 between Palladium Drive and Carp Road in Ottawa's west end Friday afternoon.
A hefty donation by a renowned local activist to the University of Winnipeg has created what is believed to be the most comprehensive two-spirit archives in all of Canada.
Leanne Van Bergen discovered a skulk of 10 baby foxes, and two mothers, had made themselves at home on her property in Beausejour.
An 81-year-old Waterloo, Ont. woman thought she’d never ride a horse again after a brain bleed led to severe physical complications.
A CP24 camera caught the moment a driver frantically got out of her car as it was being dragged by a truck on Avenue Road Wednesday afternoon.
Prince Edward Island is celebrating its first-ever International Day of Potato on Thursday.
The president of Covered Bridge Chips in New Brunswick is hoping to have his factory rebuilt for late 2025 following a devastating fire last year.
Students and staff at Winnipeg’s Westwood Collegiate had a unique problem to solve this month; how do you lead ducks to water from the school’s courtyard when 12 of them can’t fly yet?
Debby Lorinczy remembers her father as an amazing person and as a man who also made an amazing discovery.
Abigail Strate is a member of the Canadian national ski jumping team and an Olympic bronze medallist. She's also a certified beekeeper.