Don’t look now, but a small meme stock resurgence may be upon us. Shares in GameStop shot up 30% in early trading Monday in response to a weekend Reddit post from Keith Gill — the man who inspired 2021’s meme stock mania — that appeared to indicate a significant holding of GameStop common shares and call options. The stock experienced a 70% pop in mid May, when Gill posted a meme on X. The shares currently trade for about $28 apiece — up 68% year to date, and a serious gain from the roughly $10 share price in late April, but a far cry from the $125 (adjusted for a four-for-one split) they briefly traded at in February 2021. In 2021, speculators on Reddit and other social media platforms pumped the price of stocks that were heavily shorted by institutional investors. The resulting jump in share prices forced a so-called short squeeze, in which the short-sellers were forced to sell to cover loses, pushing prices even higher. It may all seem complicated and new, but the way meme stocks have traded is actually an old story in investment markets, says Brian Portnoy, a financial psychologist and CEO of Shaping Wealth.
