The Latest Meme Stock Craze Is About Out of Gas

July 29, 2025 • 1 minute, 22 second read

In 2021, it was AMC and GameStop.

This year, it’s Kohl’s and GoPro.

They’re called meme stocks, as they’re driven by posts on Reddit’s WallStreetBets.

And bets they are.

While meme stocks sound innocuous, there is a critical factor that causes these names to get sudden interest from retail investors: a high level of short interest.

After all, if you’re short a stock and it starts to rise, you start to lose money on the trade.

That means if investors can engineer a move higher in a heavily-shorted stock, a squeeze could trigger as shorts buy to close.

That’s why heavily-shorted stocks, often unprofitable has-beens in the business world, have periods of strong performance.

That’s been the case the past few months:

Turn Your Images On

Heavily shorted stocks have outperformed the past few months as the market has rebounded

This outperfomrance in stocks with high short interest suggests that the meme trade is just about played out – and that investors looking to make a quick buck following a few posts on Reddit may be in for a rude awakening.

The rise of meme stocks also suggests that traders are looking for quick moves that they can’t get in the big tech names following their multi-month rally.

It’s not a sign that the markets will crash, but another hint that stocks are overheated and due for a necessary pullback.

Don’t make a new leveraged trade right now – take any leveraged trade you have off the table.

~ Addison

P.S. As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

Ripple Effect

The Latest Meme Stock Craze Is About Out of Gas

Addison Wiggin

July 29, 2025 • 1 minute, 22 second read

market valuations Meme Stocks

In 2021, it was AMC and GameStop.

This year, it’s Kohl’s and GoPro.

They’re called meme stocks, as they’re driven by posts on Reddit’s WallStreetBets.

And bets they are.

While meme stocks sound innocuous, there is a critical factor that causes these names to get sudden interest from retail investors: a high level of short interest.

After all, if you’re short a stock and it starts to rise, you start to lose money on the trade.

That means if investors can engineer a move higher in a heavily-shorted stock, a squeeze could trigger as shorts buy to close.

That’s why heavily-shorted stocks, often unprofitable has-beens in the business world, have periods of strong performance.

That’s been the case the past few months:

Turn Your Images On

Heavily shorted stocks have outperformed the past few months as the market has rebounded

The rise of meme stocks also suggests that traders are looking for quick moves that they can’t get in the big tech names following their multi-month rally.

It’s not a sign that the markets will crash, but another hint that stocks are overheated and due for a necessary pullback.

Don’t make a new leveraged trade right now – take any leveraged trade you have off the table.

~ Addison

P.S. As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

As copper flowed into the United States, LME inventories thinned and backwardation steepened. Higher U.S. pricing, tariff protection, and lower political risk made American warehouses the most attractive destination for metal. Each new shipment strengthened the spread.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

Bears on the Prowl

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Under the frost-crusted shrubs, the bears are sniffing around for scraps of bloody meat.

They smell the subtle rot of credit stress, central-bank desperation, and debt that’s beginning to steam in the cold. They’re not charging — not yet. But they’re present. Watching. Testing the doors.

Retail investors, last in line, await the Fed’s final announcement of the year on Wednesday. Then the central planners of the world get their turn: the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and the European Central Bank.

Treasuries just suffered their worst week since June. And in Japan — the quiet godfather of global liquidity — something fundamental is breaking.

Silver continues its blistering ascent. Gold and bitcoin have settled in at $4,200 and $92,000, respectively.

How To Guarantee Higher Prices

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s absurd, really, for any politician to be talking about “affordability.”

The data is clear. If higher prices are your goal, let the government “fix” them.

Mandates, paperwork, and busybodies telling you what you can and can’t do – it’s not a surprise why costs add up.

In contrast, if you want lower prices, do nothing– zilch. Let the market work.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

December 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

Bears on the Prowl

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Under the frost-crusted shrubs, the bears are sniffing around for scraps of bloody meat.

Treasuries just suffered their worst week since June. And in Japan — the quiet godfather of global liquidity — something fundamental is breaking.

Silver continues its blistering ascent. Gold and bitcoin have settled in at $4,200 and $92,000, respectively.

How To Guarantee Higher Prices

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s absurd, really, for any politician to be talking about “affordability.”

The data is clear. If higher prices are your goal, let the government “fix” them.

Mandates, paperwork, and busybodies telling you what you can and can’t do – it’s not a surprise why costs add up.

In contrast, if you want lower prices, do nothing– zilch. Let the market work.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

December 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.