Don't look now, but a small meme stock resurgence may be upon us.

Shares in GameStop shot up 30% in early trading Monday in response to a weekend Reddit post from Keith Gill — the man who inspired 2021's meme stock mania — that appeared to indicate a significant holding of GameStop common shares and call options. The stock experienced a 70% pop in mid May, when Gill posted a meme on X.

The shares currently trade for about $28 apiece — up 68% year to date, and a serious gain from the roughly $10 share price in late April, but a far cry from the $125 (adjusted for a four-for-one split) they briefly traded at in February 2021.

In 2021, speculators on Reddit and other social media platforms pumped the price of stocks that were heavily shorted by institutional investors. The resulting jump in share prices forced a so-called short squeeze, in which the short-sellers were forced to sell to cover loses, pushing prices even higher.

It may all seem complicated and new, but the way meme stocks have traded is actually an old story in investment markets, says Brian Portnoy, a financial psychologist and CEO of Shaping Wealth.

"It just very much reflects herd, performance-chasing behavior," he says. "One of the core features of modern markets is that they lend themselves to speculation. We're all attracted to the idea of, 'Hey, one good decision could create financial independence for me and my family.'"

It's not an illegitimate feeling, he says. And of course, if you time a speculative trade exactly right, you could earn big profits.

"It's just that, if we look at the odds of that actually happening, if we're honest with ourselves, in almost every case that's simply not going to happen," Portnoy says.

How speculation fuels investing FOMO

What's happening with GameStop shares now, and what happened in 2021, isn't any different from investors in the Netherlands bidding up the price of tulips in the 1630s, says Portnoy. Investors see the prices going up and buy, hoping that that they'll pay less than the person behind them in the proverbial line.

But when the price of an asset far exceeds its underlying the value, eventually people no longer want to pay for it.

"Then it does what it does every time, which is it goes back down," Portnoy says. "That doesn't mean you can't be a successful trader, but if you're a regular person watching intense price activity saying, 'Hey, I want to get mine,' it's a very dangerous thing to get involved with."

The intense price activity, however, is exactly what makes these investments so alluring, says Brad Klontz, a certified financial planner and behavioral finance expert.

"People get more and more risk tolerant as the market gets more and more risky," he says. "Risk tolerance is not a static personality trait. It's actually pretty dynamic."

This phenomenon comes down to what Klontz and Portnoy call herding behavior, but can could just as accurately be described as investing FOMO — fear of missing out.

"You see posts on social media, and it's like putting big flashing lights out in front of the casino saying, 'Lots of people are making money — you should come on in,'" says Portnoy. "That can be hard to resist."

That's compounded by the fact that this particular run-up has a "leader" in Gill, says Klontz. "The last people who listened to him and ran in the direction he ran had the potential to make some money," he says.

Keeping your emotions in check

Even if everyone online appears to making tons of money wheeling and dealing shares of stock, the reality is less glamorous, says Klontz.

"If you're going to get into the world of trading, you're going to get wrecked. There's, like, a 99% probability that you're going to lose money, if not all your money," he says. "And the longer you trade, the likelier it is you'll lose."

If you do manage to make money, you're unlikely to know when to sell, says Portnoy. Instead, you'll likely continue chasing dopamine hits from more and more gains.

"You might go in and buy some shares of GME without knowing what the company is worth. You're just hoping that other people will buy it and make the price go up," he says. "You probably have no discipline whatsoever as to when to sell. Because once you start making a little bit of money, guess what you want? More."

To keep your FOMO from getting your portfolio into risky territory, keep two things in mind:

1. Remember your financial plan

Ideally, you manage your finances based on your specific goals for the future. Before buying any speculative investment, consider if and how it fits in to your specific plans.

When you think about it, you're likely to discover that it doesn't, Portnoy says. "Buying securities outside of the context of a well thought out financial plan is just speculation. It's gambling."

2. Be honest about your feelings

If you feel the impulse to try to gamble or get rich quick, that's OK, says Klontz. "The first part is acknowledging that we're all vulnerable. When we think we're not, that's when we get hurt the most," he says.

If you know you're the type of person to invest in an ascending meme stock, treat it like exactly what it is: a gamble. That means not allocating any more money to a risky asset than you're willing to lose and segregating play money from money you're setting aside for serious goals.

"It has to operate in a different universe, you treat those funds absolutely differently," Klontz says. "That's how you can harness mental accounting to your benefit."

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