By
Chimamanda U. Martha
January 18th, 2024
As AMC and GameStop are in a short squeeze, the CEO of Tilray Brendan Kennedy issued a warning to the companies.
On the 27th of January, at the beginning of the day, American movie theatre chain AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) stock quadrupled. On the day, AMC shares rose as a result of retail traders who injected funds intending to hit short-sellers. AMC surged 230% before mid-day and eventually closed the day with a 301.21% increase.
AMC Stock Moving Higher
AMC stock jumped on the 27th of January as major indices opened trading in the negative. NASDAQ Composite Index opened trading at a decline of about 2%. At night, NASDAQ was still down about 2.03%, while S&P 500 was down 2.44%.
Trading of AMC shares stopped several times during trading hours. For the first time, the stock trading was halted just 10 minutes into the trading session due to volatility. After then, trading was halted more times in the first hour of trading.
On the same day, AMC reached its day-high of $20.36 shortly after the trading session opened. AMC closed at $19.90, a 301.21% increase.
At press time, AMC Entertainment Holdings is down 26.63% and currently at after-hours trading of $14.60. The company grew 193.94% over the past year and 838.85% in its year-to-date record. AMC has also jumped 662.45% in the last three months and over 821% over the past month. In the last five days, the company has surged 570.03%.
On the 15th of January, AMC said the company would need $917 million in new funds to sustain through the negative effect of the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, the company stated that the required funds would support AMC through the next six months.
The company later revealed that it had secured $305 million in an equity program.
According to a CNBC report, over 500 million AMC shares were traded within the first hour of trading. The increased number of traded shares is a growth over AMC’s 30-day average volume of $86.8 million shares daily. The report further noted that over 1.1 billion AMC shares were already traded as of 4 pm ET.
Tilray CEO Advices AMC and GameStop
As AMC and GameStop (NYSE: GME) are in a short squeeze, the CEO of Tilray (NASDAQ: TLTY), Brendan Kennedy, issued a warning to the companies. He warned:
“My advice to those CEOs would be that, at times like this, your company is not your stock and your stock is not your company. Keep it all in perspective as these very unusual market dynamics are taking place.”
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Amine Bensaid commented on AMC’s recent gains. The analyst said that the increase “isn’t based on fundamentals and appears to be similar to the GameStop run-up driven by retail investors, yet could help ease a severe liquidity crunch if the company capitalizes on the jump and issues additional shares.”
In an email to Bloomberg, B.Rile analyst Eric Wold is bullish that the domestic box office would begin to rebound from losses caused by the pandemic.
