(Reuters) – Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc surged 28% in early deals on Wednesday, extending a rally and setting up to open at a record high a day after the company raised $230 million to cash in on a social media-driven trading frenzy.
The movie-theater operator’s stock traded at $41 after soaring more than 1,400% so far this year, leading gains among the group of “meme stocks” that include video game retailer GameStop and BlackBerry Ltd.
The company said on Tuesday it had issued 8.5 million shares to Mudrick Capital Management, bringing its total share sale since December 2020 to about $1.5 billion.
A source later told Reuters that Mudrick had sold off its AMC stake at a profit, believing the stock was overvalued.
Still, message volume related to AMC climbed more than 7% on trading-focused social media site Stocktwits, with about 95.8% of messages reflecting a positive sentiment.
At $41, AMC’s shares are trading at more than 10 times analysts’ median price target of $3.70, according to Refinitiv data.
BlackBerry’s U.S.-listed shares rose about 20% in pre-market trading, bringing their total yearly gains to more than 75%. GameStop was up 4.5%, while Koss Corp jumped 13%.
(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani and Aaron Saldanha in Bengaluru and Thyagaraju Adinarayan in London; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
