Shares of the heavily shorted online retailer Chewy, Inc. soared as much as 34%, reaching levels not seen since July 2023. The eruption in the stock triggered at least one trading volatility halt. 

The explosive move appears to have come from ‘meme’ stock trader Keith Gill, known as Roaring Kitty. Gill ignited the frenzy on social media after posting a cartoon image of a dog on X at 1300 ET. 

pic.twitter.com/jQBMX4jwjR

— Roaring Kitty (@TheRoaringKitty) June 27, 2024

At the same time, Chewy shares erupted, halted, and then erupted some more, surging as high as 34% to the $39 handle. And, by the way, have since dumped. 

Gill’s reason for targeting Chewy remains unknown and deviates from his GameStop stock pumping over the years. 

However, the thesis could be similar to GameStop’s, which targets bearish hedge funds. Let’s not forget that GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen founded Chewy some years ago. 

Here’s what X users are saying:

👀

— wallstreetbets (@wallstreetbets) June 27, 2024

Is this a Chewy add or is more stuff happening with GME?

— POG ® (@PogDigital) June 27, 2024

roaring kitty eyeing the dog coins now?

— jum cromer (@jumcromer) June 27, 2024

In before all the Crypto people promoting dogcoins appear. pic.twitter.com/FIsUJa49jh

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) June 27, 2024

And there’s this. 

Holy shit.

Unusual Whales has been following the unusual Chewy, $CHWY, buyers.

Since Monday, large blocks of $CHWY $30c 7/19 were followed.

Could this be RoaringKitty of $GME again? We don’t know.

But they have made millions.

The $CHWY options chain has been bullish. pic.twitter.com/RTDfeUglwo

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) June 27, 2024

One day ago. 

$CHWY June 26, 2024 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Chewy, Inc. (NYSE: CHWY) (“Chewy” or “Company”), a trusted destination for pet parents and partners everywhere, announced today that it has agreed to repurchase an aggregate of 17,550,000 shares of its Class A common stock, par value $0.01… pic.twitter.com/Gk3VmL5mLJ

— Top Rank (@TopRankInvestor) June 27, 2024

The latest data from Bloomberg shows Chewy has 19.9 million shares short, or about 17.72% of the float. The number of shares short has bounced from 25 million in early 2022 to about 20 million this week. 

The possible squeeze by Gill and his army of ‘meme’ traders appears to come a little more than two weeks after a failed GameStop squeeze that ultimately ended with CEO Cohen dumping tens of millions of shares onto retail. 

CHWY about to issue more stock https://t.co/Nwn6Hy28Cb

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 27, 2024

Let’s hope the same ending doesn’t happen here.