It will soon mark two years since the meme stock - so called for their joke-laden, internet-specific virality - craze swept the markets and the media. But that buying activity is itself a factor that pushes up the stock price, which is where the squeeze comes in. If the stock’s price starts to go up (as opposed to down, which is what those taking the short position are counting on), the shorts betting against it will start to buy the stock back at a higher price to try to stem their losses should the price climb even higher. When someone shorts a stock, they borrow shares of it, sell those shares, and then - if all goes according to plan - buy the shares back at a lower price, pocketing the difference. Part of their strategy involved orchestrating a “ short squeeze” against big funds that were betting against the stocks by shorting them. An army of retail traders - people who invest with their own money instead of on behalf of a group or institution - who gathered largely on the Reddit forum r/WallStreetBets were able to drive up the share prices of video game retailer GameStop, movie theater chain AMC, and some other relatively small companies. You see, at the start of 2021, a handful of stocks gained a cult-like following online.

“It was fascinating at the time, but it’s way past,” he said, likening covering GameStop today to writing about Soulja Boy and the Macarena. That’s how Josh Brown, market commentator and CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, responded when I told him I was writing about meme stocks in the fall of 2022, his tone one generally reserved for a parent who isn’t mad, just disappointed.

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