AMC Entertainment's No-Win Scenario
A new year has brought a new type of volatility to Wall Street. Whereas the coronavirus pandemic whipsawed equities last year, retail investors are one of the primary causes of equity vacillations in 2021.
Beginning in mid-January, retail investors on Reddit's WallStreetBets (WSB) chatroom began allying with each other to buy shares and call options in stocks with very high levels of short interest. The goal for these mostly young and novice investors has been to effect a short squeeze. Since institutional investors and hedge funds hold a majority of the short-sold positions in the stocks targeted by the WSB community, this has been construed as a battle between retail investors and the so-called "big money."
While there have been dozens of stocks that benefited, at least temporarily, from the WSB community's efforts, video game and accessories retailer GameStop and movie theater chain AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC) have been the go-to for retail investors. Between the two, AMC is arguably the most polarizing.
Source Fool.com
