This is the year that bank stocks became meme stocks. A near-record number of shares in regional banks has changed hands this month, and the number of options bets against the sector has exploded. Big Wall Street institutions and at-home individual investors alike are taking part, feeding on each other’s selling and buying.
“The dominoes will continue to fall as the gravitational pull rips more banks into pieces,” one user wrote on a day PacWest stock dropped 11%.