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GameStop investor 'Roaring Kitty' expected to tell Congress claims against him are 'preposterous'
One of the lead characters in January’s dramatic short squeeze of GameStop (GME) says he didn’t dupe amateur investors into driving up the brick-and-mortar retailer's stock price, which ultimately earned him millions of dollars.
In prepared testimony presented to the House Financial Services Committee, Keith Gill, better known as his YouTube persona Roaring Kitty and DeepF—ingValue on Reddit’s WallStreetBets board, says he simply believed in GameStop and didn’t use his social channels to push investors to purchase the beleaguered video game retailer’s stock.
“The idea that I used social media to promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors is preposterous,” Gill wrote in his opening statement, which was posted online Wednesday.
“I was abundantly clear that my channel was for educational purposes only, and that my aggressive style of investing was unlikely to be suitable for most folks checking out the channel. Whether other individual investors bought the stock was irrelevant to my thesis — my focus was on the fundamentals of the business.”
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Gill is one of several witnesses testifying Thursday before the committee that is looking into the massive run-up in GameStop’s stock price, which saw an army of amateur investors piling into the heavily shorted stock. Those amateur investors, many of whom were trading on the Robinhood platform, sent the price screaming to record highs and forced short sellers to buy the company’s shares to cover their losses. Other witnesses testifying Thursday include Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, and Citadel CEO Kenneth C. Griffin.
'It's alarming how little we know'
The GameStop saga briefly made the world of short selling a topic of dinner table conversation in recent weeks. At the beginning of January, the company’s stock was just $19, but jumped to as much as $483 on Jan. 28, before coming back down to $45.94 at the close of markets on Wednesday.
In addition to GameStop, investors launched short squeeze campaigns against AMC (AMC), BlackBerry (BB), and Nokia (NOK), forcing short sellers to buy up shares to cover their losses.
In his testimony Gill lays out his investment thesis, and mentions that despite his experience with the stock, he barely understands the whole story.
“It’s alarming how little we know about the inner-workings of the market, and I am thankful that this Committee is examining what happened,” Gill testified.
The investor has faced intense scrutiny, including an investigation by Massachusetts securities regulators who are looking into Gill and his former employer MassMutual where he worked as a financial wellness educator.
Read more: Melvin Capital says it wasn't 'bailed out' in GameStop saga
Gill does not mention in his testimony that he was a registered securities broker when he was posting about GameStop’s stock online. He did, however, state that he made it clear his videos were for education purposes only and that his investing style wasn’t for everyone.
Gill is also the target of a civil suit that filed on behalf of Washington resident Christian Iovin, which claims he made his newfound fortune by misleading unknowing investors in an effort to drive up the price of GameStop’s stock.
It’s unclear how either the investigation or suit will turn out for Gill, but there’s sure to be plenty of fireworks during the Finance Committee’s hearing Thursday.
Got a tip? Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com over via encrypted mail at danielphowley@protonmail.com, and follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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