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AMC could have cashed in more on its meme stock status

The movie theater chain’s stock has risen from $3 to above $13.

5/14/24 8:41AM

One of the most interesting things to watch during meme stock manias is when frenzied buying activity morphs from a video game on a screen completely untethered from reality into something that actually has a real-world impact.

Hertz is probably the best example of this. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020, but the sheer power of retail buying was able provide a lifeline for the company to come out the other side.

This is an example of legendary investor George Soros’s general theory of reflexivity, where market participants’ buying and selling decisions based on their perceptions — even if flawed — are able to shape and define reality.

Along these lines, it seems like movie theater chain AMC Entertainment just missed out on the ability to secure some even-cheaper funding after its stock surged from just below $3 at the end of this week to above $13 in pre-market trading on Tuesday.

This morning, AMC published a Form 8-K showing that it had completed an “at-the market” equity offering launched on March 28, 2024 on May 13. Translation: it was raising money by selling 72.5 million new shares of the company into the market. The average price it sold shares at was $3.45.

Since the start of the week through 8:30am ET, the volume-weighted average price for shares of AMC has been $5.38.

Granted, from the time this offering was launched on March 28 until the start of this week, the volume-weighed average price was just $3.13.

So management was still able to benefit a little bit from the nascent return of meme stock mania, but certainly not as much as it could have.

Especially considering (again, as of 8:30 am ET), AMC shares have nearly the same volume in the past barely-over-one-trading day than the previous 31 trading days combined!

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The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 notch new closing highs as investors shake off the government shutdown

The S&P 500 closed 0.3% higher, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.2%.

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Intel jumps on report of customer talks with AMD for foundry division

Intel shares popped in afternoon trading Wednesday after Semafor reported that it’s in preliminary talks for AMD to come aboard as a customer for Intel’s troubled contract chip manufacturing division, known as a foundry.

Shares were recently up 5.7%.

Semafor stressed that sources said, “It’s unclear how much of their manufacturing would shift to Intel if the two companies reach a deal, or whether it would come with a direct investment by AMD, similar to the deals cut by other companies. It is possible that no agreement will be reached, the people said.”

The addition of AMD — which competes with Intel in the CPU space — as a customer would be another big win for the US chipmaker following its partnership with Nvidia announced in mid-September.

TSMC, the primary manufacturer of AMD chips, was only briefly rattled by the news, and remains well in the green on the day.

Intel in early talks to add AMD as foundry customer

The addition of AMD — which competes with Intel in the CPU space — as a customer would be another big win for the US chipmaker following its partnership with Nvidia announced in mid-September.

TSMC, the primary manufacturer of AMD chips, was only briefly rattled by the news, and remains well in the green on the day.

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ChargePoint jumps as EV sales soar

Riding along with some other EV stocks, shares of ChargePoint jumped 4.1% in recent trading. The last rush to take advantage of Biden-era federal EV incentives has put a bunch of new electric vehicles on the road, sending ChargePoint up along with Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid.

Ford said earlier Wednesday that its EV sales hit a quarterly record, and it and other EV makers have been exploring unorthodox ways to replicate the EV tax credits for consumers through year-end.

Still, ChargePoint is down over 47% for the year and narrowly escaped NYSE delisting with a 20-for-1 reverse stock split back in July. And it’s not hard to see why: the company has never had a profitable quarter.

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Trump admin reportedly backs off on pharma tariffs

The Trump administration will not be imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical companies by the deadline it had initially given them, a White House official told STAT.

Last week, President Trump announced on Truth Social that starting on October 1, there would be a 100% tariff on patented, branded pharmaceuticals “unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America.” As of October 1, those tariffs have not gone into effect and it’s unclear when they will, according to STAT.

Trump administration backs off 100% pharma tariffs threatened to start today

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GE Vernova declines after analyst downgrade of top AI energy trade

Power turbine maker GE Vernova is down midday after RBC analysts cut their rating on the stock from “outperform” (essentially a “buy”) to “sector perform” (essentially a “hold”), suggesting that long-term earnings expectations for the company might have gotten too optimistic.

RBC’s Christopher Dendrinos wrote:

“Our longer-term expectations are more conservative than consensus expectations which we think could be over appreciating the cadence of revenue growth in the power segment in 2029-2030. We believe investors are already fully valuing the company on the longer-term 2030 outlook and there could be more limited opportunity for positive rate of change in current expectations.”

Dendrinos argues that the Street’s expectations for when the river of payments will materialize from the service contracts GE sells to maintain the newly installed turbines is too soon. He wrote that it will take a much longer cycle:

“Mgmt sees an opportunity to double the installed base of baseload power over the next 10 years which should support significant rev growth and stronger margins (we estimate gas service margins over 30%).

However, the first major service cycle typically occurs ~3-4 years after installation so the benefit of service price increases and new LTSAs are unlikely to begin to benefit the income statement until later in the decade and will be a gradual increase.”

Earlier in the year, GE Vernova was a top performer as the AI data center trade boomed. It was up roughly 100% for the year in late July, making it the third-best gainer in the S&P 500 for the year.

It has stalled since then, though it remains up more than 80% in 2025.