Don’t call it a comeback.

If 2025 proved anything, it’s that meme stocks aren’t going anywhere. While GameStop may be the OG, this year showed that cheap, familiar names can still be spun into overnight sensations thanks to the power of social media.

Here’s a quick recap of the biggest meme stocks of 2025, and how they’re doing now:

1. Opendoor’s summer rally was sparked by hedge fund manager Eric Jackson’s viral thesis on X, where he disclosed buying shares at roughly $0.70. The stock at one point enjoyed an 800% gain in July, and now trades at $6.28, up 292.5% YTD.
   
   The retail-driven rally didn’t just boost the stock price, it triggered real pressure on the company to improve its underlying business. Investors flooded management with demands for strategic changes and pushed for the return of co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu. They successfully drove out former CEO Carrie Wheeler, and the stock jumped 68% in a single day after the announcement.
2. Beyond Meat’s hype began when Dimitri Semenikhin posted a bullish analysis of the company’s growth potential on Reddit, helping the stock soar 1,300% in just four days. But the momentum collapsed after the company finally released its delayed Q3 earnings in November, revealing weak demand from both shoppers and restaurants. Shares fell 12% on the report, and are now down 73.76% YTD.
3. Krispy Kreme has been another unusually volatile name this year. Shares sank 6.8% in August after its partnership with McDonald’s fell apart, prompting JPMorgan to describe the company as being in “survivor mode.” But the stock staged multiple unexplained rallies, jumping nearly 40% in a single day in July and surging more than 50% over a week in October, moves that Morgan Stanley attributes to an “iconic company with lower brand risk.” However, the bursts of momentum weren’t enough to offset the broader weakness: shares are down 57.3% YTD.
4. American Eagle jumped 10% a day after announcing a new partnership with Sydney Sweeney in late July, sparking a wave of online buzz. But shares slipped once the campaign debuted and drew mixed reactions. The stock roared back though, rising 23% in a single day after President Trump called it “the hottest ad out there.” Shares are up 60% YTD.

While it can be tempting to dive in when meme stocks are popping, considering that these investments are divorced from fundamentals, packed with short interest, and their rally is powered almost entirely by retail investors, the risks often outweigh the rewards.—SY

Retail traders love to bet on stocks, but their favorite way to play the market these days resembles a coin flip rather than an investment.

You might have seen the acronym “0DTE” floating around financial news this year, but for those who don’t spend their days on r/WallStreetBets, it stands for “zero days to expiration.” 0DTE options are a special kind of contract that expires by the end of the day, making them high-risk bets on a given investment—but with that risk comes big rewards for those who get it right, including thousand-percent returns in the blink of an eye.

With retail traders taking the market by storm, 0TDE options have surged in popularity. In fact, according to CBOE, over half of the S&P 500’s daily options volume now comes from 0DTEs. While retail traders aren’t the only ones using these options—pro traders use them to capitalize on short-term swings or to hedge positions—they’re among the heaviest users.

To be fair, retail traders love options of all shapes and sizes: Bloomberg reports that individual investors accounted for 29.3% of all options volume in the third quarter. But 0DTE have become the preferred investment option for retail traders treating the market like a casino. The surge of retail participation in markets, combined with the growing gamification of markets, makes it likely that the popularity of 0DTE options will only continue to grow next year—regardless of the risks.—MR

The “sell America” trade was a short-lived fad that graced all of our newsfeeds amid the Liberation Day chaos. And while that trend didn’t exactly halt the S&P 500’s record run, it did pique our interest—if you aren’t going to invest in the US, then where should you put your money?

South Korea’s winning streak

One investment that you would have been happy to own this year was the South Korean Kospi, which is basically the South Korean version of the S&P 500. The Kospi gained 71.23% this year—making it the world’s top performing index in 2025—compared to the S&P 500’s 17.86% return. 

That’s especially impressive when you consider that over the past three years, the index traded below a price-to-book ratio of one, according to the Financial Times, which is certainly no vote of confidence.

Part of what’s driven this year’s turnaround is a slew of corporate governance reforms, which were enacted to specifically improve stock market valuations. But perhaps an even bigger driver has been excitement about the country’s AI stocks: Specifically, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which have jumped 108% and 243%, respectively, in 2025. Both firms signed a deal with the king of AI startups, OpenAI, to supply semiconductors for the company’s Stargate data center buildout.

A whole new level of retail trading

But while South Korea’s market made a serious comeback this year, it also encouraged some of the riskiest retail behavior we’ve seen to date.

The South Korean stock market has a reputation for being an especially volatile playground for meme stock mania—so much so that nearly half of its daily turnover is from speculative retail investors, according to the FT. And like the retail crowd anywhere, South Korean investors’ appetite for risk, betting, and general debauchery has only ramped up over the past year.

It’s gotten so bad that regulators there are making brokerages show investors a training video about the risks of leveraged and inverse ETFs before they’re allowed to actually buy those funds.

While the wackiness may seem a world away, South Korean traders are bringing their talents to Wall Street, drastically increasing their holdings in US stocks as the market becomes more and more gamified. South Korean traders’ holdings in US stocks have nearly doubled over the past year to reach a record $170 billion, according to the FT.

At least Americans aren’t the only ones turning our financial system into one giant slot machine.—LB