May 27, 2021
AMC’s Four-Day Surge Slaps Short Sellers With $1.3 Billion Loss
, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- The relentless four-day winning streak in AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. is drawing even more blood from short sellers.
The movie theater’s 120% surge so far this week has dealt investors betting against it roughly $1.3 billion in losses, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners. The stock, which has become a poster child for retail traders using Twitter and Reddit to squeeze short-sellers, soared 36% Thursday to the highest level since May 2017.
Retail investors have cheered gains in the cinema chain while hashtags like #AMCSTRONG, #AMC500k, and #OccupyWallstreetAMC trended on Twitter. The stock has consistently been the most referenced asset on the social trading platforms like StockTwits lately. Thursday’s rally cost shorts another $634 million, according to S3 Partners, bringing losses to just below $2 billion for the year.
While some shorts have been covering their positions, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3’s managing director of predictive analytics, he believes the pain could get even worse for skeptics. The company, along with retail investor favorite GameStop Corp., ranks high on S3 Partners’ “Squeeze Score metric” with each scoring a 10 out of 10.
Read more: AMC Defies Gravity as Retail Traders Propel Gains to 1,150%
“This signifies that both stocks have a high potential for a short squeeze, dependent on their upcoming stock price moves,” Dusaniwsky said by email. Roughly 20% of shares available for trading for both companies are currently sold short, S3 Partners data show.
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