(This article is reproduced from the Internet)
Roaring Kitty, one of the best retail traders of all time, turned $53,000 into over $46 million on $GME. After three years of seclusion, he is back and has led a new round of MEME craze. Whether it is US stocks or cryptocurrencies, $GME has re-started the moon landing mode. This is his story and inspiration.
Roaring Kitty, whose real name is Keith Gill, was born in 1986. His family is not rich, nor did he graduate from a prestigious university. In college, he was a track and field star. After graduating in 2009, he first worked for a relative's startup company that made stock analysis software. Later, he changed jobs several times and started working for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) in 2019.
In 2014, he created his own Twitter account with the goal of "finding stocks and seizing investment opportunities." In 2015, he also joined YouTube, regularly live streaming to showcase his trading and market research. He also joined Reddit in 2019 under the username DFV (DeepFuckingValue).
To use today's popular terms, Keith Gill is a US stock KOL.
The turning point of the legendary story occurred in 2019, when Gill began buying GME shares, allegedly because he felt that GME shares were severely undervalued.
At that time, another person who was also optimistic about GME was Michael Burry, a Wall Street tycoon. He was the prototype of the protagonist of "The Big Short", who fought against Wall Street alone, shorted US real estate subprime bonds and made a fortune. However, everyone later learned that Burry had cleared his position before GME stock went crazy (in the fourth quarter of 2020).
Initially, Gill bought approximately $53,000 worth of GME at an opening price of $5, and then began to announce his holdings on the WallstreetBets sub-forum of the Reddit forum, and promoted it heavily on YouTube and Twitter, live-streaming his investment portfolio and investment strategy.
At that time, GameStop was still a "bad company" mired in financial difficulties: it lost more than $80 million that quarter and its sales fell 25% year-on-year. Even layoffs and store closures did not help.
Someone commented on his post: "Brother, what made you invest $53,000 in GameStop?" Gill said he always believed in the company's future potential.
In July 2020, Gill made a life-changing discovery: the number of GME shares shorted was 150% of the outstanding shares.
Generally speaking, to short a stock, an institution has to borrow the stock and sell it, and then buy the stock back on a specified date. If the stock price falls, the hedge fund can earn the difference by "selling high and buying low". But if the stock price rises, the short sellers have to buy the stock back, which may push up the stock price and cause a "short squeeze". Players who hold these stocks can earn profits in return.
Gill discovered the opportunity: short sellers might be at risk of a short squeeze, while long sellers would have the opportunity to make money.
He posted this discovery on the WSB section and called on netizens to participate. For Reddit users, GameStop also has a special meaning: it was the place where many people bought games in their childhood.
Their biggest rival is Melcin Capital, a hedge fund known for short selling.
In January 2021, the well-known e-commerce company Chewy announced its investment in GME, and co-founder Ryan Cohen joined the GME board of directors. Stimulated by favorable factors, more and more retail investors flocked to buy GME shares, and the stock price rose by as much as 50% in a single day, and the monthly increase was close to 700%.
Under the surge, Melcin Capital was about to collapse. The legendary short-selling fund Citron came to its rescue, injected capital into Melcin Capital, and announced that it would short-sell together...
Wall Street’s counterattack has increasingly aroused resistance from retail investors. This is also a war. The slogan on WSB is loud: Short sellers must die!
On January 27, Melcin Capital announced that it would close its positions and abandon short selling. In one month, its assets evaporated by more than 50%, with losses reaching as high as US$6.8 billion, making it the hedge fund with the craziest net value drawdown since the 2008 financial crisis.
At this point, retail investors had won a phased victory, but suddenly Robinhood, a trading platform commonly used by retail investors, announced trading restrictions. Retail investors were unable to buy GME shares, and the stock price fell.
This was seen as Wall Street starting to cheat and not follow the rules, and the GME long-short battle gradually evolved into a struggle between Wall Street and retail investors, a struggle between two classes.
In this process, Gill was regarded as a leader. Although everyone later discovered that the power behind GME was not simply retail investors, GIill, who was pushed to the forefront of the times, became a banner and leader of the retail investor movement, and he also earned the biggest pot of gold in his life.
In 2019, $GME was opened at $5; in 2021, $GME reached a peak of $483. In January 2021, Gill posted a performance screenshot on WSB showing that his total earnings from GME stocks and options exceeded $31.47 million, and his cumulative holdings reached $46 million.
Now, after 3 years, Keith Gill (Roaring Kitten) returns to the X platform. What kind of excitement will he bring?
It is not known whether Gill, who is used to playing the U.S. stock market, will join the virtual currency camp after returning to the public eye this time.
Because the U.S. stock market has already created a legend, it is difficult to re-enter the market to continue the legend. But it is different in the cryptocurrency world. For Gill, it is a completely new stage. It is much easier to create a legend here than to continue the legend in the U.S. stock market. . .
