Meme stocks are melting as investors look towards Big Tech
According to a new report from Vanda Research, investor appetite for meme stocks like Kohl's (KSS), Krispy Kreme (DNUT), and GoPro (GPRO) has dropped sharply as traders shift their attention to Big Tech earnings and broader market drivers.
'Just like that, the meme stock frenzy of July 2025 has seemingly fizzled out,' Vanda's Marco Iachini wrote. Across a basket of popular meme names, average daily turnover plunged as much as 90% in recent weeks. The lone exception is the fintech SoFi (SOFI), which saw a recent jump in trading tied to its common stock offering.
The cool-down in retail-driven trades comes as major companies like Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Apple (APPL) deliver earnings that could set the tone for the broader market. Thus far, Meta and Microsoft have reported robust quarterly earnings, powered in part by their AI efforts.
'It's not surprising to see retail activity take a breather,' Iachini noted. With Big Tech earnings underway and a Federal Reserve meeting now in the rearview mirror, retail investors are reallocating toward more established players rather than high-risk names. While meme stock flows made headlines, they didn't ignite the kind of broad-based retail frenzy seen during the GME episode in 2021, he added.
Over the past month, Kohl's is down 88%, while Krispy Kreme has shed roughly 84%. Other one-time favorites like Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) and SharpLink Gaming (SBET) have also lost steam.
Meanwhile, institutional investors are playing a bigger role in driving the marker. Since April, the rally has largely been fueled by retail and systematic flows. But for stocks to keep climbing through the second half of the year, "discretionally institutional investors may need to play a larger role,' per Iachini.
Still, retail traders haven't disappeared — they've just become more selective. Shares of Kohl's spiked 2,589% in trading volume the week of July 21, after it became the target of a meme-stock trading frenzy fueled by users on Reddit's WallStreetBets.
Krispy Kreme saw an even steeper 4,371% surge during that period, powered by similar circumstances, despite weak first quarterly earnings results and ending a partnership with McDonald's (MCD). GoPro (GPRO), which has emerged as a favorite among speculative traders, didn't miss out on the action. Its trading volume ballooned 2,727% that same week.
But the recent meme stock pop hasn't come close to its 2021 peak. This brief shift towards riskier assets, sparked by hopes for rate cuts, easing inflation, and a soft landing, now appears to be under reconsideration.
'Speculative trading tends to resurface when bullish momentum in risk assets stretches over multiple months,' Iachini wrote. 'But behavior may lean more opportunistic than momentum-driven in the days ahead.'
Francisco Velasquez is a Reporter at Yahoo Finance. He can be reached on LinkedIn and X, or via email at francisco.velasquez@yahooinc.com.
Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices
Errore nel recupero dei dati
Effettua l'accesso per consultare il tuo portafoglio
Errore nel recupero dei dati
Errore nel recupero dei dati
Errore nel recupero dei dati
Errore nel recupero dei dati
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
GoPro (GPRO) Q2 Earnings: What To Expect
Action camera company GoPro (NASDAQ:GPRO) will be reporting results this Monday after market close. Here's what to expect. GoPro beat analysts' revenue expectations by 7.8% last quarter, reporting revenues of $134.3 million, down 13.6% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with a decent beat of analysts' EBITDA estimates. Is GoPro a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free. Adjusted loss is expected to come in at -$0.06 per share. The majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. GoPro has only missed Wall Street's revenue estimates once over the last two years, exceeding top-line expectations by 3.9% on average. Looking at GoPro's peers in the consumer electronics segment, some have already reported their Q2 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Sonos's revenues decreased 13.2% year on year, beating analysts' expectations by 5.1%, and Apple reported revenues up 9.6%, topping estimates by 5%. Sonos traded up 3% following the results while Apple was down 2.6%. Read our full analysis of Sonos's results here and Apple's results here. Investors in the consumer electronics segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. GoPro is up 64.6% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $0.50 (compared to the current share price of $1.30). Today's young investors likely haven't read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next. StockStory is growing and hiring equity analyst and marketing roles. Are you a 0 to 1 builder passionate about the markets and AI? See the open roles here. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
Analyst says popular meme stock is an exercise in futility
Meme stocks come and go. Then they come back and go again. A whiff of positive news – a good line in an earnings report, a hint of a merger, a rumor potentially started by a trader looking to unload a position at a profit – can bring any meme stock back to the fore. With the second busiest week of earnings season now over, that kind of action was visible this week, prompting one researcher to issue a fresh warning about an old meme stock that recently caught fire again. While meme stocks create new stories and legends with each passing cycle, the truth about many of these companies is that they are working their way towards nothing-the abyss that awaits when social sentiment finally wanes and the balance sheet is all that is left. Think Bed, Bath & Beyond, which was trading at less than $4 per share in 2020 when it got caught up in the meme mania ignited by video-game retailer GameStop (GME) . Share prices surged past $50 per share before the public's attention turned and the company began an inexorable death spiral, buried under a mountain of debt and other problems. Bed Bath & Beyond filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code in April of 2023 and subsequently closed its 360 stores. But it's hardly alone. AMC Entertainment (AMC) was an OG meme stock with GameStop. Three years ago, it was trading at over $130 per share, but now it trades at less than three bucks a share, roughly 50 percent off its 52-week high. GameStop, meanwhile, trades roughly where it was a year ago but is off by over 30 percent from its most recent peak in mid-May. While yesterday's meme stocks are likely to rekindle some interest periodically, they have been replaced by names like Opendoor, Krispy Kreme, GoPro, and Kohl's, all of which have ridden the tsunami that can happen when social media and active traders mix. David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, a Nashville-based independent investment research firm, has said for years that meme stocks are all about a trader's willingness to focus on hype and hope and ignore numbers. He believes the numbers win out in the end, but he acknowledges that plenty of stocks overcome bad news to be back in the market's good graces even while they are on a fiscal path to oblivion. Peloton Interactive (PTON) -which has been in the realm of meme stocks since it became a darling of the pandemic-got just that kind of boost on August 7, when it reported a profit for its fiscal fourth quarter, boosting shares by about 10% while the market ignored a warning that sales of exercise machines and digital subscriptions are set to decline, requiring some layoffs and a relocation of operations to cut costs. The fitness-equipment maker registered a $21.6 million profit (5 cents a share), compared to a loss of $31.9 million a year earlier. According to a FactSet survey, analysts on average were expecting a loss of 7 cents a share, slightly better than a year ago. But before the positive earnings surprise, Trainer was already calling for Peloton to suffer the ultimate meme stock fate, featuring the stock on the August 4 edition of "The Danger Zone" on the Money Life with Chuck Jaffe podcast. Related: Top analyst sends message on pending ugly earnings miss (plus one big beat) New Constructs brings together discounted cash-flow analysis and forensic accounting to evaluate securities on a scale of "most attractive" to "most dangerous." The firm's stock-picking has been rated by SumZero at or near the top of multiple investment categories, most notably leading consistently in consumer discretionary stocks; SumZero is a buy-side community in which more than 15,000 professional portfolio managers compete for Constructs first featured Peloton in the Danger Zone prior to its IPO in September 2019; since then, the firm reports that its shares have fallen 72% while the Standard & Poor's 500 is up roughly 115%. But what put Peloton back in the Danger Zone recently is that meme-stock investors are tuning out the company's long-term results and looking at its recent performance. Shares are up more than 100% from last August, largely due to shrinking losses. New Constructs reported that, "this turnaround story is already baked into the stock valuation, and at current prices, downside risk remains large," driven by declining sales, high cash burn, the sale of assets, shareholder dilution, and "a stock valuation that implies drastic margin improvement and rapid revenue growth." Trainer, in his Danger Zone appearance on the August 4 edition of Money Life, said Peloton is "making a little meme stock run here … and we just want to remind people that it's still a bad stock." "Peloton still has negative margins, negative economic book value, and it's trading as if its profits are going to dramatically increase and its revenues are going to grow 800%," Trainer said. "So like whatever turnaround you think there might be here, you know, we think it's all priced in." Trainer said Peloton's "business model is not a good business model," noting that the bounce-back is a misdirect or a head fake and that Peloton is "just left with something that's going to probably die pretty slowly." He acknowledged that the stock could still have another meme stock run, possibly a dead-cat bounce and can survive for a while until he thinks the inevitable happens. He pegged the economic book value on PTON at a negative $6.60 per share, adding that it's first-mover advantage in the home exercise space is gone, and that he would value the company "conservatively" at less than a dollar per share. Said Trainer: "This one could really go bankrupt." Related: Analyst says popular pet-food company's stock is spoiled The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Why Investors Trashed Krispy Kreme Stock Today
Key Points Investors found the company's latest earnings report to be quite the stale donut. It missed significantly on the bottom line, although it exceeded the average analyst estimate for revenue. 10 stocks we like better than Krispy Kreme › Few market players were finding the taste of Krispy Kreme (NASDAQ: DNUT) stock appealing on Thursday. They traded out of the donut purveyor assertively, to the point where its shares lost 7% of their value that day. This was notably worse than the S&P 500 index's performance, as the benchmark index closed down only marginally. A hole in the donut That morning, Krispy Kreme published a second-quarter earnings release that also heralded the launch of a turnaround plan. As for the quarter's figures, the company's revenue was just under $380 million, which was down considerably from the almost $439 million in the same period of 2024. Krispy Kreme wasn't profitable on a non-GAAP (adjusted) basis, with net loss flipping to a loss of $25 million, or $0.15 per share, from a profit of just over $9 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were modeling a far narrower net loss of only $0.04, although the company beat their collective expectation of a revenue figure of less than $379 million. Krispy Kreme said its performance was particularly affected by its now-dissolved partnership with fast food titan McDonald's. It quoted CEO Josh Charlesworth as saying this arrangement produced "unsustainable operating costs" for the donut maker. Turnaround time Krispy Kreme hopes to right the ship with that turnaround plan, which it sketched out within the earnings release. The company said this effort would focus on four aspects of its business: refranchising, particularly in foreign markets, reducing capex through better utilization of existing assets, widening its profit margins, which should be achieved through efficiency measures such as the outsourcing of U.S. logistics, and aiming for sustainable and profitable growth. Should you buy stock in Krispy Kreme right now? Before you buy stock in Krispy Kreme, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Krispy Kreme wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $635,544!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,099,758!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,046% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 181% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 4, 2025 Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Investors Trashed Krispy Kreme Stock Today was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
