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E-Trade is holding internal discussions about whether to ban Keith Gill — the meme stock trader who just exposed a large position in GameStop — from the trading platform over concerns about potential market manipulation, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Pre-owned brokerage Morgan StanleyThe newspaper, citing people familiar with the deliberations within the company, said that it had not yet reached a decision.
GameStop shares rose early Monday after Gill, who goes by “DeepF——Value” on Reddit, posted a screenshot of what could be his portfolio containing a large amount of GameStop common stock and call options. The screenshot showed that the meme stock pioneer owned 5 million GameStop shares and a position of 120,000 call options with a strike price of $20 expiring on June 21, purchased for approximately $5.68 each.
E-Trade declined to comment to CNBC, noting, “We do not publicly discuss our clients' individual activity.”
The newspaper said that Morgan Stanley's global financial crimes unit and external counsel began discussing whether Gil's account should be canceled while the company was monitoring his account activity.
The brokerage found that in May, Gill bought call options before posting on social media platform X, the newspaper said, adding that some of those contracts expired that week, meaning he likely made a profit.
The meme stock mania in 2021 led to a series of congressional hearings, including Jill's testimony, on the practices of brokers and retail stock trading manipulation. Gill has also faced several class action lawsuits, including one alleging that he posed as a novice trader despite being a licensed professional.
Jill worked as a Marketing and Financial Education Officer at MassMutual in 2019 and 2020.
– Click here to read the Wall Street Journal story.
