A single post by @TheRoaringKitty, the X profile of retail trader Keith Gill, led to rallies in meme coins and GameStop ( GME ) stock . Users interpreted the post as a sign to focus on certain stocks.Gill’s cult following contributed to the GameStop ( GME ) short squeeze of January 2021. GME rose over 44% in GME pre-market trading, while AMC Entertainment Holdings ( AMC ) jumped as much as 12%A single picture on Monday sparked rallies across some cat-themed meme coins and Gamestop ( GME ) stock as market cults heralded the apparent return of TheRoaringKitty, the X profile of retail trader Keith Gill, who made his first post since late 2021.

Gill posted a meme that refers to a period of “locking in,” a colloquial term for a period of intense focus or concentration. Users on X and Reddit ( RDDT ) largely seemed to consider the image as a sign to lock into trading markets.

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-- Roaring Kitty (@TheRoaringKitty) May 13, 2024Stocks related to Gill and other “meme stocks,” surged. GME prices were up as high as 44% in pre-market trading, while cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings ( AMC ) was up 12%.

An unaffiliated GameStop ( GME ) meme coin on the Solana blockchain surged more than 550%, DEXTools data shows, while an AMC token jumped 1,200%. Some microcap cat-themed meme coins such as kitty (KITTY) rose thousands of percent.

Data shows that opportunistic developers issued a slew of tokens referring to Gill, TheRoaringKitty, GameStop ( GME ), and “stonks” – a meme term for stocks—in the past 24 hours.

Who is Roaring Kitty?

Gill’s analysis of the video game retailer GameStop ( GME ) on Reddit ( RDDT ), starting in 2019 and gaining traction during the COVID pandemic, created a viral phenomenon at the time. It was largely cited as a driving factor in the GameStop ( GME ) short squeeze of January 2021 as several small-time traders banded together and purchased options and leveraged shares of the company.

The stock rose from $4 to over $120 in a month and, at its peak, was up thousands of percent from its lifetime low of 64 cents in April 2020.

Gill’s initial $53,000 investment was worth nearly $50 million at its peak, emerging as a rags-to-riches story of a lone trader making a fortune from his bedroom by betting against hedge funds. One of the most prolific losers was Melvin Capital, a fund that lost billions of dollars betting on the decline of meme stocks, among other bets that move against it.