This article provides background on Keith Gill and his role in the GameStop short squeeze before discussing his net worth, before, during, and after the squeeze.
Keith Gill is largely credited with sparking r/WallStreetBets’ overwhelming interest in GameStop just prior to its legendary short squeeze in late 2020…
Keith Gill — perhaps known better by his YouTube username, Roaring Kitty, or his Reddit handle, u/DeepF**kingValue — was, until late 2020, a relatively unknown financial analyst at a Massachusetts-based life insurance company called MassMutual. He traded stocks on the side as a hobby, occasionally uploading lighthearted videos about his positions and stock-picking strategies to YouTube.
Known for his casually irreverent style (often seen beer-in-hand sporting a red headband and a graphic cat t-shirt in his videos), Gill was memorialized on the silver screen with the September 2023 release of Dumb Money, in which he is played by Paul Dano.
The film chronicles the notorious GameStop short squeeze of late 2020 and early 2021, during which a loosely organized horde of retail investors, galvanized on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, used collective buying action to drive GameStop’s stock price up by around 1,500% in less than a month, much to the dismay of several hedge funds that had large short positions in the so-called meme stock.
By most accounts, Gill’s YouTube videos, which he posted to r/WallStreetBets, were the initial catalyst that sparked the saga. In his videos, Gill made the case that the struggling video game retailer was undervalued and wasn’t losing as many of its customers to online game stores as most people assumed. This, combined with the company’s massive short interest at the time, inspired Gill to invest.
Keith Gill, played by Paul Dano in "Dumb Money," was catapulted from relative obscurity to folk-hero status for his role in igniting the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021.
SOPA Images/Getty Images
His videos gained a lot of traction, and soon, much of r/WallStreetBets’ attention had turned to GameStop. Gill’s influence in the event was so pronounced that after all was said and done, he was subpoenaed and made to speak during a congressional hearing devoted to investigating the GameStop phenomenon, famously repeating his trademark mantra, “I like the stock.”
But just how much did Gill make off the squeeze? And what is he worth now?
What is Keith Gill’s net worth in 2023?
Keith Gill’s exact net worth is unclear, but it likely varies in step with GameStop’s stock price, assuming he still holds a large position in the video game retailer. While most assume he does, it is hard to say for sure, as he no longer posts video updates with screenshots of his portfolio holdings.
As of 2023, several different sources reported Gill’s estimated net worth to be around $30 million. This number should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as Gill has largely shied away from the public eye since April 2021, when he posted his last video, and Techie + Gamers, the website that first published this figure, does not provide a source for the information.
Here, Paul Dano, who plays Keith Gill in "Dumb Money," poses with the picture's director, Craig Gillespie in Vegas.
VALERIE MACON/Getty Images
How much is Gill’s GME position worth now?
As of April 2021, Gill’s GME position reached 200,000 shares after he exercised 500 call options and bought another 50,000 shares. Assuming Gill’s “diamond hands” are still holding 800,000 shares (200,000 adjusted for the company’s 4:1 stock split in July 2022), his Gamestop position alone would be worth around $14,016,000 ($17.52 per share times 800,000 shares) as of late September 2023.
What was Gill’s net worth before the GameStop squeeze?
Gill had been invested in GameStop since at least September 2019, when he posted a screenshot showing that he had a $53,000 position in the stock. By the time his videos began to gain traction on r/WallStreetBets in late 2020, GameStop’s price had already risen substantially from its summer 2020 lows, bringing his net worth up with it.
In late 2020, when the short squeeze was beginning in earnest, Gill’s net worth was estimated to be somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000 according to Dumb Money.
What was Gill’s net worth at the peak of the GameStop squeeze?
According to a screenshot he posted mid-day on January 27th, 2021, near the peak of the short squeeze, Gill held 50,000 shares of GameStop, then valued at around $17.4 million, 500 $12-strike-price call options, then valued at around $16.8 million, and around $13.8 million in cash, for a total of around $47.9 million.
The next morning during premarket trading, GME’s stock price briefly crested $500 per share, bringing Gill’s 50,000 shares up to $25 million in value — not including his call options or cash position.
What does Keith Gill do now? Does he still own GameStop Stock?
Gill has retreated into relative obscurity since his last video update in April of 2021, which was titled “Cheers everyone!” Even though he hasn’t posted any new content since then, his YouTube channel, Roaring Kitty, still boasts over 500,000 subscribers, many of whom are likely waiting eagerly to hear from their hedge-fund toppling folk hero once again.
Gill no longer works for MassMutual, having resigned on January 28, 2021, just after the peak of the GME short squeeze. Whether or not Gill still holds some or all of his 800,000 (split-adjusted) shares of GME is unknown, although most of his fans seem to think he remains bullish on the stock.
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.
“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””
“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”
That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:
“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”
That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in “This Is Nuts:”
“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”
Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.
Birds Of A Feather
There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.
“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”
The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”
“Standard Deviation” is defined as:
“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”
In plain English,this meansthat the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.
A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”
“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.
Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia
With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.
Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.
The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.
In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.
It’s All Relative
We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.
Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.
The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.
Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.
Not A Recommendation
There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.
Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.
However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Credit: Impact Journals
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”
Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Agingteam.
About Aging-US:
Agingpublishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Agingis indexed and archived byPubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism
One month after the inflation outlook tracked by the NY Fed Consumer Survey extended their late 2023 slide, with 3Y inflation expectations in January sliding to a record low 2.4% (from 2.6% in December), even as 1 and 5Y inflation forecasts remained flat, moments ago the NY Fed reported that in February there was a sharp rebound in longer-term inflation expectations, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% at the three-year ahead horizon, and jumping to 2.9% from 2.5% at the five-year ahead horizon, while the 1Y inflation outlook was flat for the 3rd month in a row, stuck at 3.0%.
The increases in both the three-year ahead and five-year ahead measures were most pronounced for respondents with at most high school degrees (in other words, the "really smart folks" are expecting deflation soon). The survey’s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) decreased at all horizons, while the median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—declined at the one- and three-year ahead horizons and remained unchanged at the five-year ahead horizon.
Going down the survey, we find that the median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3% for gas; decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.8% for the cost of medical care (its lowest reading since September 2020); decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.8% for the cost of a college education; and surprisingly decreased by 0.3 percentage point for rent to 6.1% (its lowest reading since December 2020), and remained flat for food at 4.9%.
We find the rent expectations surprising because it is happening just asking rents are rising across the country.
At the same time as consumers erroneously saw sharply lower rents, median home price growth expectations remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive month at 3.0%.
Turning to the labor market, the survey found that the average perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job separations increased, while the perceived likelihood of finding a job (in the event of a job loss) declined. "The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months also increased, by 1.8 percentage points to 19.5%."
Mean unemployment expectations - or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 36.1%, the lowest reading since February 2022. Additionally, the median one-year-ahead expected earnings growth was unchanged at 2.8%, remaining slightly below its 12-month trailing average of 2.9%.
Turning to household finance, we find the following:
The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.1%. The series has been moving within a narrow range of 2.9% to 3.3% since January 2023, and remains above the February 2020 pre-pandemic level of 2.7%.
Median household spending growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%. The increase was driven by respondents with a high school degree or less.
Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased to 9.3% from 8.9%.
The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 26.1%, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 30%.
Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated somewhat with fewer respondents reporting being better off than a year ago. Year-ahead expectations also deteriorated marginally with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be better off and a slightly larger share of respondents expecting to be worse off a year from now.
The mean perceived probability that U.S. stock prices will be higher 12 months from now increased by 1.4 percentage point to 38.9%.
At the same time, perceptions and expectations about credit access turned less optimistic: "Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting tighter conditions and a smaller share reporting looser conditions compared to a year ago."
Also, a smaller percentage of consumers, 11.45% vs 12.14% in prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payment over the next three months
Last, and perhaps most humorous, is the now traditional cognitive dissonance one observes with these polls, because at a time when long-term inflation expectations jumped, which clearly suggests that financial conditions will need to be tightened, the number of respondents expecting higher stock prices one year from today jumped to the highest since November 2021... which incidentally is just when the market topped out during the last cycle before suffering a painful bear market.
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