Shares in GameStop doubled on Monday after “Roaring Kitty”, the man at the heart of the stock market frenzy surrounding the video gaming chain three years ago, resurfaced on social media.

Trading of GameStop was halted several times as its shares surged to their highest levels in more than a year when New York opened for trading.

Keith Gill, the influencer known as Roaring Kitty and former marketer at an insurance firm, posted on X for the first time since 2021. He shared a sketch of a gamer leaning forward, as if things were getting serious – and followed up with a string of clips from movies and TV shows.

In one clip from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Captain Barbossa, having unexpectedly returned from the dead, remarked: “So tell me, what’s become of my ship?”

The posts triggered a surge in GameStop shares, which rallied by as much as 110% during early trading on Monday. They slipped back, and ended the day up 74%.

Gill’s videos on YouTube, and posts on Reddit, where he is known as DeepFuckingValue, placed him at the front of an army of meme-toting day traders who tried to mount a rebellion against Wall Street – and the financial titans dominating the market.

Their bid to engineer a “short squeeze”, whereby the hedge funds that bet against GameStop were left scrambling to shore up their balance sheets after its shares surged, was transformed into a Hollywood movie last year. Paul Dano played Gill, who was the central character in Dumb Money.

Gill himself has largely kept his head down, however – and steered clear of social media – until now. His posts on Sunday evening and Monday unleashed a torrent of speculation around his plans.

Shares in GameStop have fallen dramatically since their extraordinary peak in early 2021, at the height of the so-called “memestock” trading frenzy, when a string of companies were boosted by viral memes.

Questions have been raised, too, about the strength of GameStop’s business, which has endured a series of high-profile departures from its management team. In March, the chain cut an unspecified number of jobs to reduce costs and reported lower fourth-quarter revenue.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, noted that the stock had rallied despite a “horrible” first quarter. “Monday’s move in GameStop rounds off a good month for the company,” she said. “Its stock price has surged more than 60% in the past month, fueled mostly by demand from retail traders.”

Roaring Kitty “seems to be the most likely suspect for the renewed interest today ... but I would be careful not to characterize the participants in this phenomenon as investors”, said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.

“There’s no fundamental change in any of the companies that are popularized in this phenomenon.”

Monday’s rally spread beyond GameStop to other top memestocks. Shares in AMC Entertainment, the movie chain, rose 78% while Trump Media, the former president’s media business, rallied before losing steam, to finish the day up 1%.

Reuters contributed reporting