AMC's stock registers biggest gain in a month

By James Rogers

The movie-theater chain's shares saw their largest daily percentage gain since Feb. 27

Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. ended Wednesday's session up 6.6%, registering the stock's biggest daily percentage gain since Feb. 27, when they rose more than 8%.

Earlier this week, AMC (AMC) Chief Executive Adam Aron said that the first part of 2024 will be "a slog" for the movie-theater chain and original meme stock, citing the ongoing impact of last year's Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes.

"The impressive forthcoming movie slate gives me increasing confidence in the potential for a solid industry box office later in 2024 and in 2025. But the first part of 2024 is just a slog to wade through, given that the 2023 strikes delayed movie releases from early this year," Aron wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Monday.

"As I have said before, cash is king," he added. "The smartest thing AMC did to survive during these past four turbulent years was to make sure we had corporate oxygen available to us, that oxygen for AMC of course being cash in the bank."

Related: AMC CEO says first part of 2024 'a slog to wade through'

"As noted during our last earnings call, AMC is focused on extending our debt maturities and ensuring that our cash reserves remain robust," Aron continued. "This is the recipe for success."

AMC has seen a decline in its share price in recent months. The stock has fallen 29.1% this year, compared with the S&P 500 index's SPX gain of 10%.

The theater giant, like videogame retailer GameStop Corp. (GME), saw its stock skyrocket during the meme-stock frenzy in 2021.

Related: AMC clinches deal with NBC to show live Olympics coverage in theaters

Recent weeks have seen a resurgence of meme-stock chatter around Reddit Inc. (RDDT) prior to its initial public offering last week. This week, Donald Trump's social-media company Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) became a public company following its merger with the special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp., and was described as "a supercharged meme stock," by Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida and an expert in IPOs.

-James Rogers

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03-27-24 1759ET

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