A US stock market selloff is hitting shares of meme stocks particularly hard, dragging down companies that became favourites among individual investors last year.

Shares of GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings have tumbled in the first trading week of 2022, losing 12% and 17%, respectively. It is a turnaround from 2021, when so-called retail investors banded together to send the shares soaring. GameStop and AMC, both struggling businesses when retail investors discovered them en masse last year, finished 2021 with gains of 688% and 1,183% for the year.