Meme Stocks and Meme Bets: Are We Seeing the Same Behavior?
In the last few years, two unexpected trends have captured attention: meme stocks in the investment world and meme bets in online sports betting. While these two movements happen in different spaces, they show some surprisingly similar patterns—mainly driven by online communities, collective excitement, and viral momentum rather than careful research or analysis. What Are Meme Stocks? Meme stocks are shares of companies that become popular not because of strong financial performance, but because people talk about them online. GameStop and AMC are two of the most famous examples. Large groups of investors, often coordinated through platforms like Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, decided to buy these stocks en masse. Their goal was sometimes to make quick profits, but other times it...