What's Behind the Recent Meteoric Rise in Meme Stocks?

In the past five days, meme stocks such as AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC), BlackBerry (NYSE: BB), Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY), Clover Health (NASDAQ: CLOV), and GameStop (NYSE: GME) are up anywhere from 23% to almost 300%. It is clear that there is coordinated action to pump up these stocks. They have been moving almost in tandem with one another throughout the week.

Behind the spike are the 10.3 million traders of the WallStreetBets (WSB) subreddit. Young, full of energy, and driven by a "financial independence, retire early" (FIRE) mindset, members of WSB have developed a highly sophisticated trading strategy as a means to their end.

It all starts with meme stocks: humble businesses trying to turn around their operations in the face of record-high short interest. It's the type of company that resonates deeply with underdogs. How can this setup let ordinary investors go from zero to hero? 

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Source Fool.com