(Bloomberg) — The GameStop Corp. calls that Keith Gill — known online as ‘Roaring Kitty’ — purported to own traded huge volumes late Wednesday as the firm’s shares dove in the final stretch of trading.
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GameStop $20 calls expiring June 21 traded 93,266 times, with most of that happening after 3:30 p.m. While the average trade on the day was 21 contracts, trades in the last period of the day were almost twice as big.
In a social media post earlier this month, Gill alleged to have bought 120,000 of the contracts, with a subsequent post indicating he hadn’t yet closed his position.
News of his position sent shares nearly doubling to over $45 this month, before retreating. The company capitalized on the rally to sell $2.14 billion of shares. With expiration approaching, the question has remained whether Gill would exercise the contracts to receive shares, or close out the position.
While there’s no way to tell if he was involved in the flurry of trading on Wednesday, the specter of the stock’s key booster exiting some or all of his position could weigh on shares, which dipped as much as 19% intraday and closed 17% lower at $25.46.
The $20 calls traded as high as $13.90 each earlier Wednesday, dropping to $6.40 at the close. That’s still above his purported average purchase price of $5.6754.
(Updates with additional context starting in fourth paragraph)
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