Fund Named MEME Is on the Way to Surf the Retail Investor Waves

(Bloomberg) -- Investors looking to capitalize on this year’s meme-stock mania without having to scour Reddit message boards may soon be able to through an exchange-traded fund. 

The Roundhill MEME ETF (ticker MEME) will screen stocks based on their social media activity and levels of short interest, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday. The ETF will rebalance every two weeks based on the holdings’ “social media score” over a trailing 14-day period. 

MEME is the latest attempt in the $6.8 trillion U.S. ETF universe to directly tap online retail-investor sentiment. Most recently, the VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF (BUZZ) launched with the backing of Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports Inc. It started with a boom, quickly gathering assets of about $500 million, however it has struggled to maintain momentum and now has around $220 million.

The new fund will be passively managed, following the Solactive Roundhill Meme Stock Index, and if approved will trade on the New York Stock Exchange. 

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