Michelle Leder, Columnist

The Stock Market Enters Late-Stage Fanaticism

The fervor surrounding even tiny stocks seems unhealthy and largely unsustainable.

This is how weird the stock market is getting.

Photographer: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

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Even in this crazy market, what to make of a stock that’s risen more than 5,000% since November? I’m not talking about GameStop Corp. or AMC Entertainment. Alpine 4 Holdings Inc. is a tiny company that few people, myself included, had heard of until I stumbled upon a disclosure it filed late on a recent Friday afternoon.

I posed a simple question to the Twittersphere: Why, according to the disclosure, had Alpine and some of its investors filed a libel suit against two investment firms that were betting against the stock? Soon afterward, I felt as if I had been sucked into the matrix.