AMC stock pared losses Thursday after the Reddit favorite completed another share offering, following another scorching rally.
AMC Entertainment (AMC), in a filing early Thursday, said it would sell up to 11.55 million shares from time to time via a so-called at-the-market offering.
But by the afternoon, the movie-theater chain said it had already completed the offering and raised $587.4 million. Combined with an earlier secondary offering that raised $658.5 million, AMC's tally for Q2 alone is $1.246 billion.
Proceeds from the sale will go to general corporate purposes. Those include debt repayment, acquisition of theaters, working capital and other investments.
The new share offering comes after AMC stock soared more than 2,800% in the year-to-date through Wednesday. The wild swings prompted management to include a warning in its filing Thursday.
"We believe that the recent volatility and our current market prices reflect market and trading dynamics unrelated to our underlying business, or macro or industry fundamentals, and we do not know how long these dynamics will last," the company said.
"Under the circumstances, we caution you against investing in our Class A common stock, unless you are prepared to incur the risk of losing all or a substantial portion of your investment."
That contrasted with a more upbeat tone Wednesday, when it introduced a new communication effort, called AMC Investor Connect, to engage directly with its more than 3.2 million individual investors as of March 11. Retail shareholders, it said, owned more than 80% of AMC stock.
"Many of our investors have demonstrated support and confidence in AMC. We intend to communicate often with these investors, and from time to time provide them with special benefits at our theatres," AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a statement. "We start with a free large popcorn on us, when they attend their first movie at an AMC theatre this summer."
AMC Stock
Shares closed down 18% at 51.34 on the stock market today after diving as much as 43% intraday. On Wednesday, AMC stock rocketed 95% higher, to 62.55, a record. GameStop stock fell 8.5%.
Among other stocks that have been the subject of chatter on the Reddit board WallStreetBets, which functions as the id of sorts for the broader "stonks" crusade, BlackBerry (BB) turned higher again to rally 4%. Pot producer Sundial Growers (SNDL) surged 14%.
Workhorse Group (WKHS), which makes electric trucks, launched 28% higher. However, the exact identity of the investors remains unclear.
The offering off more AMC stock comes after other aggressively-hyped so-called meme stocks, like GameStop (GME), have also run higher in recent days.
A series of memes also appeared on the Twitter page for Roaring Kitty — the user credited with inspiring what has been described as something of a retail-driven holy war against short-sellers, larger investors and big financial institutions this year — after a weekslong period of inactivity.
Despite the surge, most meme stocks don't fit IBD's CAN SLIM investing strategy. Most of the companies have weak fundamentals with difficult and uncertain prospects. Aggressive traders can attempt to buy these meme stocks based on technicals alone as they break out of consolidations. But most are greatly extended with extreme volatility.
