Have you heard a meme that could rally the shares of a struggling company. I guess no one in their wildest dreams can imagine this. But a trader has returned who gave birth to the meme stock phenomenon in 2021. With this, investors have taken quite the keen notice of the same.
After a three-year hiatus of three years, Keith Gill, popularly known as Roaring Kitty, has returned to the social media platform. So what is meme stock? The answer would be a stock which refers to the shares of a company that has become popular on social media platforms. This upsurge is caused by a heightened social sentiment.
GameStop, which is the primary stock in the meme stock mania, had shared the same stock in February In the year 2021. According to Know Your Meme, an internet meme database, the meme has been interpreted as “when things get serious.”
Reminding investors about the meme stock frenzy three years ago, that simple post on X led to GameStop shares jumping 74 percent on May 13. Furthermore, the stock witnessed a significant upsurge of 119 percent during the day, wherein, the trading had to be halted several times because of its volatile nature.
AMC Entertainment gained 78 percent, Reddit shares climbed 9 percent, and the shares of Robinhood Markets rose 4 percent apart from the surge in GameStop stock.
Short sellers reported over USD1 billion in mark-to-market losses betting against GameStop on May 13.
“That he is able to generate a crowd says that the crowd is back to feeling FOMO and YOLO in an enormous way,” said Peter Atwater, President of Financial Insights and an adjunct professor at William & Mary and the University of Delaware. “When people dive into things that are of pure speculative value, their confidence is extremely high and this is one of the ways that it manifests.”