Meme Stonks Explode As Retail Mania Storms Back: BBBY Halted +75%; GME Soars

If Powell hoped that a few rate hikes would contain the froth in the market that defined much of 2021, he suggest taking a quick look at what’s going on at such meme stonks at BBBY which is up 75% today…

… or the OG of meme, GME, which also suddenly exploded higher and was also halted as a flood of hedge funds masking as retail investors flooded in hoping to sucker the reddit army into chasing momentum higher….

Remarkably, the short interest in BBBY is not even that high – in a historical context…

… yet the repo rate to keep a short on is off the charts amid the float/liquidity vacuum.

And while traditionally retail investors justify this kind of herd squeeze by letting the man – supposedly Citadel or whoever – who is shorting these memes “have it”, in this case all mom and pop investors – who will soon be stuck nursing massive losses – have achieved, is buy Ken Griffen another $100 million penthouse.

Meanwhile SEC boss Gary Gensler is raging somewhere at cryptos for being an existential risk to investors…