It seems meme stocks are back, and this time, the latest craze was sparked\u2014somewhat accidentally\u2014by a Canadian hedge fund manager named Eric Jackson.<\/p>\n
About three weeks ago, Jackson\u2019s firm, EMJ Capital, bought shares of Opendoor Technologies, a San Francisco\u2013based company that buys and sells homes online, at around $0.70 apiece. Since then, the company\u2019s share price has skyrocketed over 600% to an intraday high of almost $5 on July 21. Today, it\u2019s trading at about $2.40, still a roughly 250% gain from just weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Opendoor is a real business,\u201d Jackson told Bloomberg in an interview<\/a>. \u201cI never expected it to be called a meme stock.\u201d<\/p>\n Meme stocks are shares of struggling or heavily shorted companies that surge in price thanks to hype on social media platforms like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), often with little connection to the company\u2019s financials. The phenomenon first took off in early 2021, when retail traders famously drove up shares of GameStop and AMC in a movement led by Keith Gill, a YouTuber and investor better known as \u201cRoaring Kitty.\u201d Now, Jackson is unexpectedly being pulled into that same world. Bloomberg reports that his face is already being photoshopped onto images of Roaring Kitty.<\/p>\n Jackson first gained prominence in 2015 with a 99-page presentation<\/a> to Yahoo\u2019s board, urging the company to replace then\u2013CEO Marissa Mayer over mismanagement. Mayer eventually stepped down herself in 2017 after Verizon bought the company.<\/p>\n