"Shut cinemas, capacity limits and movie delays mean receipts may not reach pre-pandemic levels in the foreseeable future," she said, "and the long-term box-office outlook remains weak, as studios shrink the theatrical window and send films directly to their streaming platforms." Chain to offer free popcorn for stock owners The run-up in the company's shares "is largely motivated by individual investors' desire to revamp Wall Street by squeezing short sellers and hedge funds," she says, because fundamental problems with the company's core business model remain. And so far this year, short sellers have lost more than $2 billion betting against the company, according to short selling research firm S3 Partners. Roughly 20 per cent of AMC's shares, or about 95 million, are being shorted, she calculates. At rival movie chain Cinemark, for example, less than 10 per cent of the company is owned by retail investors, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Geetha Ranganathan noted. More than 3 million individual people own AMC shares at the moment, and their combined stake adds up to more than 80 per cent of the company - an extraordinarily high ratio for any publicly traded company. WATCH | This short video explains how short selling works:Īnalysis Why a Reddit group pumped GameStop shares up 1,000% on a larkĪlthough the shares fell off a little in the afternoon, at $70 a share, AMC was valued at more than $25 billion US, which is more than GameStop was worth at the height of its mania. Many Wall Street short sellers have been betting that the company's share price would decline, but when momentum changes direction, those shorts are forced to buy into a rising stock price, creating even more buying pressure to push the price up in a phenomenon known as a short squeeze. The stock is up by more than 1,100 per cent this year. But that hasn't stopped retail investors from pouring money into the chain on the belief that better times are ahead. The number of paying customers declined by 88 per cent compared to the same period pre-pandemic. The vast majority of the chain's locations are either closed or at reduced capacity, and last month AMC revealed it lost $567 million US in the first three months of the current fiscal year. and another 97 in Canada and around the world. Business isn't boomingĪMC has 585 movie theatres across the U.S. Retail investors on social media networks like Reddit, Discord and others have been buying into the theatre chain in large numbers in recent weeks, buying up as many shares as they can get, despite the company's underlying business still being negatively impacted by COVID-19. The company has become the latest target in a battle between retail traders and Wall Street investors known as short sellers, who make money when stocks go down. That stock price is about six times what the company was worth barely a month ago. When markets closed, AMC shares were worth $62.55 apiece, up about 95 per cent on the day. Shares in money-losing movie theatre chain AMC continued their dizzying rise on Wednesday, doubling in value as retail traders continue to pile into the company on the theory that they've caught Wall Street investors in a squeeze.ĪMC shares briefly topped $70 a share at one point on Wednesday, more than twice the $32 level they closed at the day before.
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