Chewy shares briefly rise after filing shows 'Roaring Kitty' takes stake

By Manas Mishra

(Reuters) -Shares of Chewy rose as much as 10% on Monday after a filing showed Keith Gill, the stock influencer known as "Roaring Kitty", had picked up a 6.6% stake in the pet products e-retailer.

The filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission comes days after the investor, known for triggering the meme-stock rally of 2021, posted an uncaptioned picture of a puppy on social media platform X that briefly sent Chewy shares to a near one-year high on Thursday.

The Monday filing, which lists Keith Gill as the reporting person, included a section "Check the appropriate box to designate whether you are a cat" under which the descriptor "I am not a cat" was checked.

The U.S. SEC, Chewy and Gill did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Gill usually discloses his trading positions on platforms such as YouTube and Reddit, where he is known as "DeepFuckingValue", to the many retail traders who follow his cues.

The filing showed Gill owns 9 million shares of Chewy, equating to a stake worth about $245 million at the stock's Friday closing price of $27.24. The stake would make Gill Chewy's third-largest shareholder, according to LSEG data.

Chewy's shares rose as high as $30 on Monday but reversed most of the gains in volatile early trading. They were last down 1.5% at $26.91.

Shares of Chewy, which sells pet food and medicine online, have risen 15% in 2024 but declined in the three preceding years as spending on pets slowed after a post-pandemic boom.

Trading volumes in Chewy stock options have been unusually high over the past 10 sessions, with some 158,000 contracts changing hands daily. That's nearly four times the average over the proceeding year, according to a Reuters analysis of Trade Alert data.

Call options, typically bought to express a bullish view, were particularly active. Contracts betting on Chewy finishing above $30 by mid-July were the most actively traded options on the stock over the last 10 days.

Chewy rival Petco Health and Wellness Company's shares fell 4%, after gaining more than 13% since Gill's post on Thursday.

Some analysts said last week Gill's interest in Chewy could also be influenced by the fact that the pet retailer was founded by GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen.

GameStop had gained nearly 700% in the 2021 meme-stock rally, fueled by Gill's posts. The influencer renewed a surge in GameStop shares in June, when he returned to Reddit after a two-year hiatus.

Shares of the videogame retailer have swung wildly since Gill reappeared. They dropped 7% on Monday, but have gained 33% for the year so far.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Pratik Jain in Bengaluru, Saqib Ahmed in New York; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Devika Syamnath and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)