Former meme stock AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) will report earnings on May 16. Shares in the movie theater chain are down by nearly half on the year. Yet CEO Adam Aron insists they’re not out, pointing to a line of “exclusive events.”
Aron said on X, formerly Twitter, that AMC Theaters will host a listening party with Dolby Sound for the new Billie Eilish album “Hit Me Hard and Soft.”
Analysts expect AMC to report a loss of 79 cents/share for the March quarter. Shares opened May 8 at about $3.14 each, with a market capitalization of about $875 million.
Long Way From Meme
During its 2021 heyday as a meme stock, AMC regularly sold for hundreds of dollars per share. Small traders on sites like Reddit (NASDAQ:RDDT) pushed it higher, squeezing institutions allegedly shorting the stock.
Aron pushed the meme hard, even creating preferred “APE” shares when he reached share limits. Those were folded into the common stock stack last year.
Since then, Aron has been trying to move AMC beyond its role as a movie theater chain dependent on Hollywood. Last year, it had exclusive showings of concert films by Taylor Swift and Beyonce. The company’s Fathom Events unit also tries to build community showings of old films and TV shows.
In 2023, AMC revenue nearly matched its pre-pandemic heyday in 2019, at $4.7 billion. The stock also got a slight boost when strikes by actors and writers finally ended.
However, the costs of survival left AMC with over $9 billion in debt, and it’s still losing money. Audiences remain below those before Covid, making events like those hosted by Fathom more important.
AMC Stock: What Happens Next?
AMC survived the pandemic and the strikes, but its future remains bleak. It has gone from being a meme stock to a penny serenade, the market cap below $1 billion and falling.
On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
