Meme stocks ride on, though investors more cautious than GameStop era

investing.com:

By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Laura Matthews

NEW YORK (Reuters) — More than two years since a breathtaking surge in shares of GameStop (NYSE:GME) captivated Wall Street, the meme stock phenomenon continues to defy predictions of its demise.

Yet the retail investors who have driven past meme stock moves appear to have become more cautious after last year's market selloff, while rallies in the shares of the often small and heavily-shorted companies bearing the meme stock label have tended to be more fleeting.

Here are some charts illustrating what has changed, and what has not, in meme stocks.

A rally in a crop of recently minted meme stocks has already hit turbulence as shares of companies including Tupperware (NYSE:TUP) Brands, trucking firm Yellow and American Superconductor (NASDAQ:AMSC) Corp tumble from highs touched weeks ago, amid a broader selloff in U.S. equity markets, though many are still far higher than they were earlier this year.

Data from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) illustrate how quickly sentiment can turn among individual investors, who have been among the key drivers of moves in meme stocks. Retail investors sold a net $852 million in single stocks in the past week. Over the last four weeks, they have wiped out all inflows the category had seen since the debt ceiling resolution at the end of May, the data showed.

The Roundhill MEME ETF, which tracks the performance of a basket of meme stocks, is down about 55% from where it started trading in December 2021, though up about 38% for the year.

A quick rise, often followed by a rapid descent, is a fate common to meme stocks of both the past and present. Analysts at Vanda (NASDAQ:VNDA) Research, however, say investors in recent months are putting less money into shares