Keith Gill (investor)

Keith Patrick Gill (born 1986), known on Reddit under the pseudonym DeepFuckingValue and on YouTube and Twitter as Roaring Kitty, is an American financial analyst and investor known for his posts on the subreddit r/wallstreetbets. His analyses of GameStop stock (and his resulting investment gains) posted on Reddit and YouTube were cited by many as a driving factor in the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021, and as a spark for the subsequent trading frenzy in retail stocks. The rising stock value allowed him to turn "an investment of around [US]$53,000 into a figure nearing $50,000,000."

Gill's postings have been described as having "forthright, spreadsheet-laden content", and his Reddit username, derived from the investing term deep value, is intended to "reflect a belief in value investing". Gill's identity was revealed to the public by Reuters following an investigation of public records and social media posts on January 28, 2021.

Personal life
Gill was born on June 8, 1986, to Steven and Elaine Gill and was raised in Brockton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Stonehill College in 2009 and holds several school records in track and field. Gill was named the indoor athlete of the year in 2008 by the US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association after he won the 1,000-meter race at the New England Championships with a time of 2:24.73.

Gill is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He has held a license as a securities broker since about 2010 and was employed at MassMutual until his resignation on January 28, 2021. He is married and has one child.

Position on GameStop
In September 2019, Gill (as DeepFuckingValue) posted a screenshot of a "YOLO" trade on r/wallstreetbets, consisting of a roughly $53,000 long position in GameStop; Gill's Reddit posts and YouTube videos argued (through both fundamental and technical analysis) that the stock was undervalued. The position was 50,000 shares and 500 call options. In a YouTube video, he noted that his argument did not constitute financial advice, saying "I don't provide personal investment advice or stock recommendations during the stream".

Nonetheless, his argument "helped attract a flood of retail cash into GameStop": during the first days of the valuation spike in late January 2021, hundreds of thousands of people downloaded investment apps like Robinhood to "join the action". Ultimately, Gill's investment in the stock of GameStop (which he had begun in June 2019 when the stock was $5 per share) would inspire other posters and readers to invest.

Subsequent investment in the stock (and other "meme stocks" such as AMC, BlackBerry, and Nokia) would result in controversy; the 2021 GameStop short squeeze would result in several hedge funds and other institutional investors experiencing significant financial difficulty, as well as many retail investors (and other institutional investors) seeing significant gains. By January 27, according to screenshots he posted on Reddit, Gill's original investment was worth nearly $48 million. The value of the stock continued to fluctuate wildly; he lost $15 million in one day, and when markets closed on January 29, The Wall Street Journal confirmed that his brokerage accounts held $33 million. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gill said he "wasn't a rabble-rouser out to take on the establishment, just someone who believes investors can find value in unloved stocks".

Regulatory issues
On February 4, 2021, it was announced that William Galvin, Massachusetts's secretary of the commonwealth, wrote to Gill's previous employer MassMutual to investigate whether or not Gill or the company broke any rules related to his activities in promoting the GameStop stock. A week earlier, Galvin had called for a 30-day suspension of trading in GameStop securities.

Gill is expected to testify to the House Financial Services Committee on February 18, 2021, along with Vladimir Tenev, a co-founder of Robinhood.