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Meme stocks are losing that meme stock energy

16 July 2021
Dan Ackermann
Data: Google Trends; Chart: Axios Visuals

Meme stocks are losing that meme stock energy.

Why it matters: A handful of stocks, including GameStop and AMC Entertainment, attracted huge amounts of interest earlier this year thanks to online communities like Reddit.

  • This sparked a boom in new retail stock trading accounts on platforms like Robinhood, where traders trade commission-free.
  • But in the past month, GameStop and AMC shares tumbled around 30% and 40%, respectively.

State of play: One factor that turns a stock into a meme stock is that it attracts the attention of new traders who are committed to trading with hoards of buyers.

  • These new traders tend to be novice traders, and they seek information like novices at anything else: they do Google searches for basic terms.
  • However, Google Trends data shows searches for basic terms like "investing" and "buy stocks" have fallen to levels not seen in over a year.

What they’re saying: DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas says this is a "very bad omen" for meme stocks.

  • "To our eyes, the data here says that the surge in US retail investor interest in investing is entirely over," Colas writes.
  • "Every craze needs new adherents (i.e., not just the same crowd) to keep it relevant, and the Google chart shows those are in increasingly short supply."

The bottom line: Crazes never last, though there will continue to be weird reasons stocks may move up or down sharply over short periods of time.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.