By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed
NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Roaring Kitty" Keith Gill, the stock influencer behind the 2021 meme stock frenzy, may be sitting on a paper profit of tens of millions of dollars on his position in GameStop options, but reaping those gains might not be easy.
GameStop soared 21% on Monday after Gill’s Reddit account posted a screenshot showing a $116 million bet on the embattled video game retailer. The post, the first from the account in three years, also showed a position of 120,000 GameStop June 21 call options at a strike price of $20, worth $65.7 million at Friday's close. Call options convey the right to buy shares at a fixed price in the future.
Reuters was unable to independently verify if the Reddit post was made by Keith Gill or if the positions disclosed were authentic.
However, Trade Alert data showed the number of open contracts in GameStop soared to 145,000 by the end of May, from just about 15,000 on May 19. Figuring an average trading price of $5.52 during that period, a buyer of 120,000 options contracts would have been up about $54 million on Monday, based on the contracts' closing price of $10 a piece.
