The recent surge in trading of short-dated GameStop options contracts has led some market participants to believe that Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, may have sold some of his disclosed options position in the company. Gill, who played a key role in the meme-stock phenomenon of 2021, revealed in a Reddit post on June 2 that he held 120,000 GameStop June 21 call options and 5 million GameStop shares. This disclosure sparked increased interest in the options market, with many closely watching Gill’s position.
On Wednesday, a significant number of the June call options changed hands, with some trades involving large quantities of 5,000 contracts or more. The average price at which these contracts were sold was $7.65, causing speculation that Gill may be closing out his position. The overall GameStop options volume surged to 1.2 million contracts that day, a 66% increase from the stock’s average daily volume over the past month.
Despite fluctuations in the value of Gill’s options position, his 120,000 contracts were projected to be valued at $76.8 million by the end of the trading session. With GameStop shares falling 16.5% to $25.46, the stock’s performance added another layer of complexity to the trading activity surrounding Gill’s options position. As market participants await open interest figures to confirm the extent of Gill’s transactions, the intrigue surrounding his moves continues to grow.