GameStop's Meteoric Rise: Riding the New Surge on Social Media's Wings

The first electrifying ‘meme stock’ sell-off of 2022 has been replaced by a massive GameStop stock rally that has left the financial sector shimmying with wide-eyed excitement and disbelief, as well as a bit of suspicion. Once again, the market in GameStop shares has been taken into orbit, this time by Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, a YouTube trader. In this article, I’ll explain how social media can manipulate stock prices, consider other ‘meme stocks’ that have felt the heat along with GameStop, and explain why surges like this in stock prices are unsustainable.

The Catalyst Behind the Surge: A Roar Heard Around the Wall Street

But there’s one obstacle: Keith Gill – the long-time GameStop enthusiast infamously known as Roaring Kitty – could not stop himself from posting on social media. After a period of quiet, Gill’s return following his testimony in Massachusetts, complete with a massive GameStop position in his new brokerage account at Fidelity, re-ignited retail interest, and his latest screenshot of a big position at E*Trade became the catalyst for the latest surge, propelling GameStop’s price to more than double in a couple of hours. Meme stocks that rise and fall on social media narratives are inherently highly volatile.

The Surge Spreads: Ripple Effects Across the Market

Gill’s latest move did not affect only GameStop. Many other widely held stocks leapt, including AMC Entertainment. It was a repeat of the 2021 meme stock craze in which co-movements across many stocks appeared in response to intertwined sentiments on Twitter and other social media. So the surge was just one manifestation of what is increasingly true for meme stocks: it is all about the herd.

Analyzing the Surge: Skepticism Meets Optimism

Analysts and investors remain divided about what comes next in the wake of this most recent spike. Some sceptics doubt that GameStop’s stock price can be sustained over the long term because the future of digital transformation in gaming is an uncertain one. Others have speculated that its recent gains were speculative bubbles that had inevitably begun to burst. In contrast, others keen to celebrate the meme stocks as a counter-narrative to traditional investing stories view the GameStop episode as yet another example of the success of a new mode of investing deserving celebration. Meme stocks simultaneously invoke and unite fundamentals, sentiment and speculation.

The Sustainability of the Surge: A Balancing Act

Perhaps one of the biggest questions to come out of this latest rally, though, is whether these surges could be sustained. The short-term elation undoubtedly raised enthusiasm, but the 2021 run – both as a beacon and a warning sign – suggests that social media-fueled investment strategies could be quite risky indeed.

The Surge and Its Critics: Addressing Concerns of Market Manipulation

As the world watches GameStop stocks play a rollercoaster, and cheers on the Reddit traders who led that rally, or frets that it was all a little too easy (and a little too manipulated), we look at the outcome and wonder if something went wrong. It shouldn’t be this easy to manipulate an entire market with the posts of a few influential Redditors. It shouldn’t be this fast to see huge shifts in stock prices. Yet, this experience is a reminder of a challenge facing regulators that we’ll see more and more in a world where we’re tracking crowdwisdom markets.

The Future of the Surge: Where Do We Go From Here?

Indeed, it will be fascinating to watch where the course of GameStock and other meme stocks leads, as social media influencers and market dynamics dance with investor demand. This frenzy may be a blip on the screen or it may usher in a new era of stock trading. Whichever way, the world of investing has changed, thanks to social media and the widespread availability of financial information.

Understanding the Surge

Simply put, a stock surge is a sharp and dramatic increase in a stock’s price within a small time frame. These movements can be driven by financial reports, product launches or – as with GameStop – viral social media posts. The key elements of a surge are speed and the dramatic effect that a sudden increase can have on a company’s valuation (often accompanied by a corresponding jump in trading volume). Surges offer the possibility of substantial gains for investors, but they also capture the volatility and risks of the heart of the stock market in a very concrete way. They’re something that everyone in the time of checking out markets pays close attention to.

Finally, the full version of the GameStop story – the most recent version at least – would seem to be another example of the power of community, the power of social media, and the volatility of contemporary financial markets. For those seeking investments, and those keeping an eye on markets, learning to read the influences behind these sortses of surges will be critical to the future.