GameStop and AMC pare back gains as dust settles from Roaring Kitty-fueled meme-stock frenzy

By James Rogers

GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. pared back Monday's gains Tuesday as the dust continued to settle from last week's meme-stock frenzy.

Shares of GameStop (GME) ended Tuesday's session down 4.4% after ending Monday's session up 4.2%. AMC (AMC) shares fell 3.7% after closing up 9.8% on Monday.

The companies saw their stock prices soar on last week - lifted by the return of commentator Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, to social media - but then pared back their gains.

Roaring Kitty kicked off a busy week on social media May 12 with his first post on X, formerly Twitter, in three years. The investor and analyst was an influential figure in the meme-stock frenzy of 2021.

That was followed by a flurry of often cryptic posts last week that harnessed clips from movies and TV. Gill's most recent post on X came Friday afternoon and featured a clip from the movie "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." The clip shows the iconic scene in which E.T. says farewell to a tearful Elliott. As in many of Gill's posts last week, music also features prominently - in this case, the Supertramp song "Goodbye Stranger."

Riding the Roaring Kitty roller coaster: Why GameStop and AMC meme madness is an 'outlier event'

The rally sparked memories of the "gamification" of trading during the meme-stock heyday of 2021, but was also described as an "outlier event" by Victor Ricciardi, a visiting finance professor at Ursinus College and co-author of the book "Advanced Introduction to Behavioral Finance."

GameStop shares are up 26.2% in 2024 and AMC shares are down 24%, compared with the S&P 500 index's SPX gain of 11.6%.

-James Rogers

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05-21-24 1908ET

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