By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing – AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) shares jumped 16% Thursday, and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) discovered that the stock has replaced GameStop (NYSE:GME) as the top Reddit trend on WallStreet Bets.
Joining the meme-stock party, according to BofA, is Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND), a provider of plant-based meat substitutes. That stock rose 11%.
AMC, GameStop, and Koss (NASDAQ:KOSS) have been part of the meme stocks gang which has a devoted following on Reddit’s WallStreetBets.
GameStop, so far a darling of the Reddit group, was down 2%, while Koss was up as much.
The story mostly began in January, when some Reddit followers decided to take on the big hedge funds who were short on GameStop. That unexpected coming together of widely distributed retail investors resulted in a short squeeze in the stock and created trouble for the institutional traders. One even went under.
Since then, the battle between the big institutional guys and the small retailer traders has waged on.
In the process, all doomsday projections of small investors playing with fire have come to naught, and meme stocks have continued to stay at elevated levels.
Few gave GameStop a chance as the video game retailer struggled against the online players in the last year. It has revamped its management, brought in new people to head key operations and pivoted to an online avatar and continues to stay in the hunt.
AMC survived a year of pandemic shutdowns and is today trading at 52-week high. The multiplex operator raised $428 million in equity at an average price of $9.94 per share in May. The shares have more than doubled since.