Opendoor is the hot new meme stock. Here's what to know

Uttering the words “Opendoor Technologies” on Wall Street last month would likely be met with silence. Enter Reddit.

The social media platform’s army of retail traders have taken a recent interest in the online real estate startup. Its share price rose 74% since Friday, surging more than 50% on Monday alone. While it has rebounded slightly since yesterday’s height, its shares are still up fivefold since July 1. Up until then, Opendoor was considered to be a penny stock, trading around $1 since the year’s start, having plunged 100% in value since its 2021 highs. 

During Monday’s session, 1.9 billion Opendoor shares exchanged hands, more than 1,700% of the three-month average, according to FactSet. Exploding volumes even caused trading to halt at multiple moments due to the sheer volatility. 

What appears to have catalyzed Opendoor’s ascent is an X post by hedge fund manager Eric Jackson on July 15. Jackson’s firm EMJ Capital had bought Opendoor shares back during the firm’s post-IPO golden era in 2021, when it was valued around $40 billion. So, when Jackson shared that EMJ has taken a position in $OPEN , adding that the firm believes it could be a “100-bagger” over the next few years, it appears to have ignited a chain reaction.

Come July 17, the ticker $OPEN appears to be cited in r/WallStreetBets for the first time, the Reddit forum where retail traders orchestrated the GameStop mania of 2021. 

Yet, nothing has materially changed about Opendoor since the start of July—it remains a “cash-burning, low-margin business with meager near-term growth prospects,” according to CNBC. What has changed is Jackson’s online influence. “Over the last month, my X impressions have exploded,” he wrote in last week’s call-to-arms post. 

Jackson’s X bio reads: “The Carvana hedge fund guy. All he does is try to find the next Carvana over & over again.” Online used car retailer Carvana saw its shares rocket over 7,600% since 2023. On X, Jackson claims that  EMJ Capital’s “AI model” is wired to spot the early signs of a Carvana 2.0, a model which he cites when flagging underweight stocks.

“There’s a real hunger for buying the next big thing,” Jackson told CNBC, with investors on a quest to find the “downtrodden.”

Jackson, according to X, is mostly long on crypto-related stocks, which have been buoyed by Bitcoin’s recent rally. These include miners IREN and Cipher Mining, shares in which have grown 75% and 80% respectively, and an Ethereum exchange-traded fund, up 60%.

While not influenced by Jackon’s posting, retailer Kohl’s appears to be another “downtrodden” company catching the attention of the memestock traders. Its share price opened 85% higher on Tuesday. While it has since lost about half of those gains, it is still trading almost 50% higher since Friday.