Meme-stock crowd heads into 2022 with "its first taste of reality"

The 2021 rush to heavily shorted "meme stocks" accomplished at least one thing where the longest bull market had failed: It brought young retail investors into the fold. 

Individuals who had sat out Wall Street's more than a decade-long winning run jumped into stocks this year, lured by a trading mania that had hundreds of thousands of investors buying into struggling old-school companies like cinema chain AMC Entertainment and video game retailer GameStop as both became fodder for online chat rooms.  

A company would "somehow end up in a chat room discussion on Reddit and become the belle of the ball," recalled Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group in Fairfield, New Jersey.