It may be the peak of summer, but it’s feeling like January 2021 again: The meme stock craze is so back.

An army of hyper-online retail traders have plucked some lucky stocks from relative obscurity and elevated them to meme status: Opendoor Technologies and Kohl’s. Yes, Kohl’s.

It all started when activist investor Eric Jackson, known for an early bet on Carvana, posted his investment thesis for real estate firm Opendoor on X. The post went viral, and triggered a surge of trading interest in the stock—which has now risen over 250% since July 14 when Jackson posted, even after shares fell 10.28% today as retail traders took profits.

It just so happens that day trading Redditors aren’t just real estate market experts—they’re savants in the world of big box retail, too. Shares of Kohl’s skyrocketed 37.62% today, after nearly doubling yesterday—making Tuesday the company’s best single-day performance ever. And for those of you who were around for GameStop the first, second, or third time, this part will sound familiar: A massive short squeeze is driving the Kohl’s mania, according to Bloomberg.

Deregulation + meme craze = ?

You may recall the heyday of meme stocks during the pandemic years, when people had way too much free time and social media exposure. But retail traders and meme frenzies have continued to become an increasingly powerful force shaping financial markets.

Brokerages are looking to tap into the degeneracy: Just yesterday, Charles Schwab said it's adding more ETFs to its 24-hour trading in order to meet demand from retail traders. The company enjoyed a strong profit in its second quarter thanks to a surge of interest from everyday investors trying to get in on the market action this year (more on that later).

Plus, a major day trading spending limit is set to be lowered by FINRA, according to Bloomberg. The “pattern day trading rule” currently requires investors making more than four day trades in a five-day period to have at least $25,000 in their margin account. FINRA is looking to drop that number down to $2,000—lowering the bar for average investors to make risky leveraged bets against stocks.

Michael Goldstein, professor of finance at Babson College and former chair of the economic advisory committee for FINRA, told Brew Markets that although the $25,000 limit was outdated, $2,000 is just too low for high-risk margin trading. “I have this concern that there's a whole bunch of 20-somethings who will have a very bad experience early on, and then shy away from the stock market as a whole for a decade,” he said.

Wall Street used to sneer at retail investors buying meme stocks, but as Opendoor and Kohl’s illustrated this week, the influence of average investors continues to grow—and now the institutions and regulators are doing everything in their power to encourage them to keep playing the market. Whether they win or lose doesn’t seem to matter.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• Medpace isn’t a meme stock, but it still soared 54.67% today. It was all thanks to a seriously impressive beat-and-raise earnings report for the clinical researcher.
• It was a great day for healthcare stocks: IQVIA climbed 17.92% after beating Wall Street forecasts last quarter.
• DR Horton popped 17.02% after the homebuilder crushed Q3 earnings expectations.
• It was also a great day for other homebuilders: Pultegroup rose 11.52% despite lower home closings last quarter, and management is optimistic that sales will bounce back next quarter.
• Northrop Grumman gained 9.41% after a strong quarter, including an 18% increase in international sales for the defense contractor.

What’s down

• Lockheed Martin dropped 10.81% after the legacy defense contractor revealed big losses in its classified aeronautics program.
• It wasn’t that great a day for defense contractors in general: RTX fell 1.58% after the company cut its earnings guidance.
• General Motors may have beaten earnings expectations last quarter and kept its fiscal forecast intact, but investors didn’t like to hear about the $1.1 billion in tariff costs. Shares of the automaker stumbled 8.12%
• Coca-Cola lost 0.59% after strong European sales helped the soft drink titan beat earnings estimates, but shareholders weren’t happy about weakness everywhere else.
• Equifax tumbled 8.18% thanks to disappointing guidance for the current quarter from the consumer credit company.

Philip Morris International isn’t a cigarette company anymore. These days, it’s a purveyor of pouches—specifically, Zyn pouches. This smokeless, nicotine-infused product has been a smash hit, keeping Philip Morris relevant in an era of healthy consumers cutting other addictions ad nauseum.

Philip Morris has pinned its hopes on smoke-free alternatives like Zyn, a group of products that accounted for 24.2% of its revenue in 2020, 38.7% of revenue last year, and is expected to hit 67% by 2030.

That’s why shares tumbled 8.51% today on the news that Zyn didn’t sell as well as Wall Street anticipated. Philip Morris sold 191.3 million cans of Zyn last quarter, below forecasts of 203 million cans, despite high demand following a shortage of the pouches last year.

For reference, the company sold 385 million cans of Zyn in 2023, 581 million cans in 2024, and expects to dole out between 780 and 820 million cans this year. Such a startling increase in demand for nicotine pouches truly begs the question, is Zyn gonna kill me and the boys?

While the rest of us just got heart palpitations, trading platforms received a serious boost from all the market chaos that ensued after that fateful Liberation Day on April 2.

Just look at Interactive Brokers, which surged 6% on Friday after announcing its customer accounts rose 32% last quarter to reach 3.87 million, helping the brokerage handily beat top and bottom line earnings expectations. Overall, the company is up 40.94% year to date, far outpacing the broader market’s increase of 7.28%.

Or take Charles Schwab, which announced it opened over 1 million new brokerage accounts last quarter, giving the company a 23% boost in trading revenue. That wasn’t all—its profit climbed 60% in Q2 after the market chaos enabled it to rake in higher fees. Shares are up 28.84% in 2025.

And while Robinhood isn’t set to report earnings until next Wednesday, investors anticipate a windfall: Its stock closed at an all-time high on Friday, and has climbed over 173% this year so far.

Zoom out: Turns out it wasn’t just Wall Street bigwigs who were rapidly buying and selling stocks like their lives depended on it in April, ushering in record profits for the titans of Wall Street. Retail traders were buying the dip, too: The retail crowd dumped roughly $30 billion into US stocks and exchange-traded funds in the weeks following Liberation Day, according to Bloomberg, including $3 billion worth of new assets on just April 3 alone.

Everyday investors have more power than ever

All this good news for retail trading points to a larger trend: Retail traders have become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to moving the market. That’s why brokerages eager to bring new traders through the door and keep investors investing have gamified their offerings—literally.

These days, brokerages aren’t just offering a style of investing that some compare to gambling—they’re actually letting users gamble on literally anything.

This will surely all end well, right? Wanna bet?—LB

• Elon Musk just opened the first Tesla diner in Hollywood.
• Party pooper: Goldman Sachs is raising red flags about the economy’s health.
• AstraZeneca pledged a $50 billion US investment to thwart pharma tariffs.
• The euro is making a comeback.
• Victims of “pig butchering” financial scams are imploring banks to do more to protect them.
• Everyone is confused about why stocks are up so much.

The only economic report worth watching tomorrow is existing home sales, and let’s be frank: All that is going to tell you is that the housing market is still terrible.

Instead, focus your attention on earnings, because we’ve got some big names dropping their latest numbers, including Chipotle, NextEra Energy, IBM, AT&T, T-Mobile, ServiceNow, Hilton Worldwide, O’Reilly Automotive, Las Vegas Sands, and Mattel.

But the headliners are clearly these two Mag 7 heavyweights:

After the close

• Tesla needs this earnings report to go well. To be clear, its quarterly numbers will be terrible: The EV maker reported a 13.5% drop in vehicle deliveries in Q2, and Wall Street is anticipating a sharp drop in earnings. But it’s the forward guidance that will determine the stock’s fate, and if Elon Musk can convince investors that he’s fully recommitted to the company, maybe, just maybe, shareholders can get a bit more optimistic about the future. Consensus: $0.37 EPS, $22.61 billion in revenue.
• Alphabet isn’t really a Tesla rival per se, but shareholders will be interested to hear how Waymo is doing in the robotaxi race. They’ll also want to learn more about how YouTube continues to wipe the floor with traditional media players. But it’s not all good news: Regulatory scrutiny, a costly battle with fellow tech titans for AI dominance, and a decline in search growth are all clouds hanging over the stock that investors should keep a close eye on. Consensus: $2.16 EPS, $87.94 billion in revenue.