Anders Anderson is interviewed about ‘meme stocks’ a year on from the GameStop short squeeze

Anders Anderson, the Swedish House of Finance, shares his assessments of GameStop, the future of ‘meme stocks’, and the impact of internet fora on hedge funds and the financial industry in conversation with Swedish online media platform Omni Ekonomi.

‘Meme stocks’ are stocks that attract retail investors through social media. The phenomenon is partially explained by an observed increased interest in the stock market among retail investors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Coupled with the rise of new financial intermediaries, such as Robinhood, the result has been increased trading by groups that have previously not accessed financial markets. Whereas Anderson predicts that interest in ‘meme stocks’ is likely to fall as the market, generally, cools off, the possibility of future ‘meme stock’ price hikes remains as long as there is an appetite for risk. Still, future targets are likely to be small companies with significant growth ambitions, rather than large and well-established firms. Ultimately, Anderson expects that ‘meme stocks’ will force hedge funds to review their investment strategies and governments to consider new regulatory legislation.