“There’s nothing rational with the way AMC’s stock is trading.”Īnalysts like Handler believe that AMC’s shares should be trading at $5 to $10 a share and note that the company’s previous high of $35 per share was achieved in 2018 during a record-breaking year for the box office. “I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and I’ve never seen such a retail-fueled frenzy in the stock market before,” says Eric Handler, an analyst with MKM Partners. AMC also has $450 million in deferred leases, and most analysts believe it won’t be cash-flow positive for at least another year. Yet the company is still burning cash at a rate of more than $100 million a month and is heavily leveraged, with more than $5 billion in debt on its balance sheet. Square 13 theater on March 5, the first day cinemas reopened in New York. Socially distanced moviegoers attend the AMC Lincoln
“I spend every waking moment trying to make AMC a stronger company, so the people who bet with us are the ones who succeed.” “It just really annoys me to no end that people bet against us,” he said. And without endorsing any particular stock price, he said it would be a mistake to root against the company. In the interview, he said he had started following “1,000 apes” on Twitter - referring to Reddit investors - because he wanted to stay in touch with investor sentiment. On June 3, the cinema circuit’s CEO appeared on “Trey’s Trades,” a YouTube show for retail investors. … The warnings do nothing except feed the frenzy of the fake news.”Īnd AMC chief Adam Aron has sometimes encouraged the Reddit crowd. “It may be volatile, but it’s going to swing back up again because it has to. “This is an army behind this,” says Jessica Thalls Rivera, 31, a spokesmodel from Las Vegas, who is hoping that her AMC investment will help her put a down payment on a house. That did nothing to dampen the frenzy - indeed, the stock price more than doubled after the warning before dropping sharply and then shooting up again. But on June 1, the company issued an extraordinary warning to its investors, advising that AMC’s valuation had become detached from reality, and that retail investors risked incurring “substantial losses.”