AMC ends dizzying week with more wild moves

Investors haven’t been deterred by the fact that AMC is still losing money, bleeding cash and facing a mountain of debt plus heavy competition, leading some analysts to liken it to the dot-com craze of 20 years ago – on steroids.

True to form, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. ended its wild week with another day of moves that confounded anyone trying to explain them. The new king of meme stocks bounced between gains and losses, closing 6.7% lower at $47.91 on Friday. It’s still up 83% on the week, adding to May’s 160% surge. It’s been quite a ride for AMC, with the stock’s surge enabling the world’s biggest movie-theater chain to sell equity and shore up its shaky balance sheet. On the brink of bankruptcy only a few months ago, the company is now the darling of retail traders, with this year’s 2,200% gain ranking as the most of any stock in the Russell 3000 Index. GameStop Corp., which started the meme-stock craze back in January, is a distant second with an advance of about 1,300%.