AMC Entertainment’s (NYSE:AMC) short borrow fee has risen to 244.40%.
This is the fee short sellers are paying annually to borrow short shares in efforts to suppress the stock’s share price from creating a short squeeze.
Short sellers could face serious losses as the movie theatre chain stock begins to move up in price again from retail buying pressure.
As hedge funds begin to play the long game and begin to buy the stock again, the reality for the short seller could be disastrous.
In 2021, AMC shareholders were able to move AMC’s share price from $2 per share to $20, and then from $9 per share to its all-time high of $72 per share based on momentum alone.
AMC retested the heavy demand zone at $6 per share and even retested above the $8 level in the beginning of 2023.
However, share prices have broken below these levels today.
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AMC’s Rising Share Price Spells Trouble for Short Sellers
Is AMC about to squeeze shorts again?
Retail investors continue to take on Wall Street in 2023 as long-term shareholders continue to buy and hold the world’s largest movie theatre chain stock.
#AMCSTOCK and #AMCSQUEEZE have been trending on Twitter for two years in a row now, signifying shareholders aren’t leaving.
After price rejection at $6 levels, AMC found itself trading above $7 per share having retested $8.32 earlier this year.
AMC’s short interest is already over 25% according to Ortex data, higher than the short interest it was before it began surging to its all-time high.
Retail investors have been waiting for AMC to trade above $100 per share since 2021 when it nearly reached those levels.
And with the extremely high short borrow fee rate, shareholders are waiting to see the stock’s price skyrocket again.
Short sellers betting against the movie theatre chain are no longer paying the 1% short borrow fee rate like they were last year.
According to Stonk-O-Tracker, hedge funds are currently facing a 244.40% short borrow fee rate to short AMC.
Market News: How hedge funds manipulate the stock market.
Hedge funds have been manipulating the stock market for decades.
But it wasn’t until now that a community has risen to raise awareness of market injustices.
The shorting of both AMC and GameStop stock have uncovered a number of nefarious strategies used against retail investors.
What is the SEC doing to regulate these financial entities?
We’re here to find out.
Welcome to Franknez.com – The blog that fights for retail investors. Today we’re discussing how hedge funds manipulate the stock market and what the SEC is doing about it.
Let’s get started!
Overleveraging Borrowed Shares
Hedge funds have an incredible supply of short shares available to borrow.
This advantage has allowed them to manipulate a stock’s share price by initiating short-ladder attacks.
While supply and demand are pushing a stock’s price up, hedge funds short the stock using an insane amount of leverage.
This predatorial strategy has yet to be announced as illegal nor has it been addressed by the SEC.
Off Exchange Trading
Hedge funds and market makers are getting away with being able to trade and swap stock in foreign exchanges where the stock’s price isn’t required to be disclosed.
They’re taking retail orders and, in a way, manipulating the circulating supply by not reporting accurate transactions.
We’ve seen this happen with Barclays.
Barclays CEO, Jes Staley – Hedge fund manipulation
Reports by Finra have been made public detailing multiple fines on Barclays for inaccurate books and records.
Barclays is one of Citadel’s clearing houses.
Off exchange trading where transactions aren’t displayed on the list market such as the NYSE is a massive problem the SEC is still trying to figure out.
AMC and GameStop have had an incredible amount of FTDs, or failure-to-delivers.
These are orders that have not been executed in options, and are usually a result of a ‘short party’ not owning or not having all of the underlying asset.
This has led retail investors to the educated assessment that synthetic shares are floating in the market; shares known as naked shares used to short a stock.
According to Investopedia, “Despite being made illegal after the 2008–09 financial crisis, naked shorting continues to happen because of loopholes in rules and discrepancies between paper and electronic trading systems.”
Naked shorting has gone mainstream with CNBC’s Melissa Lee and Fox Business’s Charles Payne bringing light to this predatorial practice in the market.
Retail investors must use their voice to address these issues to the SEC.
According to The Fool, you should invest in this or that “instead”.
We’ve seen the headlines countless times.
The Motley Fool is a source that provides its subscribers with hand-picked stocks with potential gains.
With tremendous respect, stick to what you do.
The integrity of this company is to help investors pick winning stocks, not to divert them from a stock due to its potential upside that can cause hedge fund partners to lose billions of dollars.
And that’s exactly what happened.
No matter how many times mainstream media outlets tried to divert retail investors from buying AMC stock, it cost hedge funds a lot of money all year.
And at the same time, a lot of retail investors have a lot of unrealized gains.
This ladies and gentlemen is how the media has tried to manipulate the performance of a stock.
This influence can sway a new retail investor from adding to the surging volume of shares being purchased in the market.
To the new retail investor – make your financial decisions based on your own due diligence.
Not on what media sources get paid to write about.
Yahoo Finance & InvestorPlace
Platforms such as Yahoo Finance & InvestorPlace have also had their fair share of negative headlines to try and divert the public from skyrocketing AMC to the moon.
With InvestorPlace even throwing a jab at GME investors saying, “If You’ve Made Money On GameStop, You’re Not An Investing Genius”.
Perhaps not, but I’m pretty certain these investors are wealthier than the person who came up with that punchline.
These media sources have been discouraging new retail investors from investing in AMC since the beginning of the year although the stock is up year-to-date!
Manipulation In the Stock Market
Robing Hood? Stock market manipulation
I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Robinhood scandal.
This is another form of manipulation in the stock market caused by the halt of buying power.
Robinhood prevented its users from buying stocks such as AMC and GME (GameStop) during GME’s bull run.
Although restrictions aren’t as tight anymore, we’re beginning to see trusted and beloved companies get exposed as hedge funds worst nightmares become a reality.
Today we’re seeing more people learn about how the stock market moves.
If more of the public is to understand how hedge funds pose a risk to our economy and businesses, we must expose these financial institutions for who they really are.
Franknez.com fights The Fool, Yahoo Finance, and InvestorPlace
Franknez.com is fighting for the community against malpractice from all news media shunning AMC, GameStop, and other retail favorites.
This platform will serve as a positive media outlet for the community and only spread factual documentation, and news related cited-sources.
I will not encourage retail investors to take a position in any stock.
However, I will outline the facts and evidence to help you make your own personal financial decision.
How can retail investors bring awareness to the community?
Retail investors can expose false information on social media to shine light on manipulation tactics driven by hedge fund partners.
Sharing factual and positive articles relating to the performance or analytics of a particular stock is another way the investing community can stay united.
Franknez.com is a platform for the community.
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Franknez.com is the media blog that keeps retail investors informed.
When AMC and GameStop surged in share price back in January of 2021, retail investors on Reddit weren’t worried about dark pools or market manipulation.
They knew that in numbers they could increase the market capitalization, and in turn, increase the share price and collect big profits.
My favorite part of Reddit was seeing all the incredible gain porn.
If you’ve been part of the ape community since the beginning, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Seeing investor’s gains on Reddit was both desirable and exciting, I mean who wouldn’t want a piece of the action?
So, did market makers and hedge funds all of a sudden decide to start manipulating the stocks after January?
Not quite.
So, what caused AMC to skyrocket in 2021, and why hasn’t it skyrocketed again since?
Here’s what’s stopping AMC from squeezing today.
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Dark pools and off exchange trading?
AMC Dark Pools | AMC off exchange trading
Are dark pools and off exchange trading the reason why AMC has not squeeze yet?
Not quite.
See, dark pools and off exchange trading have unfortunately been unfair suppression retail investors have no control over.
These loopholes did not magically appear after January’s runups; they’ve always been there.
While majority of retail investor’s orders are not processed through the lit exchange, high volume has always had a positive effect for investors going long.
As a collective, the small percentage that is processed through the lit exchange accumulates to create the momentum necessary to drive prices upward.
And Redditors on r/wallstreetbets knew this.
All they needed to know was that these stocks were heavily shorted in order to create a short squeeze from fueled buying momentum.
AMC gained attention in January when it surged from $2 per share to $22 per share.
But we noticed many short sellers were still hanging around, so we advised to the public of the possibility at hand.
Months later AMC surged to $72 per share and it was all due to the massive crowd of retail investors who purchased the stock.
AMC was having 500,000,000 to 900,000,000 volume days.
The movie theatre industry is no longer struggling to attract movie lovers back to the big screen.
While pandemic lockdowns threatened the existence of thriving cinemas, rapidly growing numbers of attendees have continued to grow over the past two years.
The only thing movie theatres are missing is more movie titles, says CEO of AMC Entertainment Adam Aron.
As “Avatar: The Way of Water” gets closer to the $2 billion mark at the worldwide box office, James Cameron says it’s a reminder that moviegoers still value the theatrical experience in an era of streaming dominance.
“I’m thinking of it in the terms of we’re going back to theaters around the world. They’re even going back to theaters in China where they’re having this big COVID surge. We’re saying as a society, ‘We need this! We need to go to theaters.’ Enough with the streaming already! I’m tired of sitting on my ass. Source:Variety.
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Market News: Short sellers face major risk as AMC’s short interest, volume, and short borrow fees rise.
AMC’s high short interest is one of the biggest confirmations AMC Entertainment stock can squeeze again.
Of course, there’s the second component which will trigger it, and that’s volume.
We’ve seen spikes in AMC’s share price during heavy volume days, something we saw on a weekly basis before AMC reached its all-time high of $72 per share last year.
Retail investors bombarded the stock market and fueled massive rallies through heavy buying pressure.
AMC might have the short interest it needs to rip again, but does it have the liquidity it needs from retail investors?
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AMC Short Interest Today
Fintel is reporting AMC’s short interest today at 19.76%.
Other platforms are reporting AMC’s short interest at 20%; so, we have an idea of where it’s rounded at.
This high short interest is quite risky for short sellers as any major rebound could put bets against the movie theatre chain in significant losses.
While it made sense for institutions to go short when AMC’s share price began dropping after its peak, AMC has hit strong levels of support today, making it ideal for buyers to step in.
Institutions may also begin to buy back in at current levels, very well knowing an AMC short squeeze is possible.
AMC’s short interest today is around the same as it was prior to the massive surge from $14 to $72 per share.
This means those betting on AMC to squeeze this year already have one major component checked off.
Big players closing their short positions in AMC may trigger big price runup at any moment.
They just have to decide the tide is turning against their position for retail to see this.
Volume Forced Big Price Action Last Year
What will trigger AMC to squeeze?
Average volume this year for AMC Entertainment stock has come down significantly from last year’s bull market.
But this is expected as massive selloffs occur in a bear market and investor confidence subsides momentarily.
Soon institutions along with retail investors combined will begin to pick the markets back up.
And with it, turn the tide against short sellers.
The market will experience major squeezes, not just from AMC, but from various shorted stocks too.
Heavy buying pressure is the key to successfully trigger a short squeeze in the market.
AMC and GameStop proved that last year when massive crowds of retail investors began to buy shares of both companies in heavy volumes over a period of months.
If you missed last year’s momentum waive, it’s possible very soon we may see what could be the last time an event like this occurs again.
But of course, this will all depend on investor sentiment.
Because if there are no investors in AMC, then there is no volume.
And if there is no volume, there’s no tide to turn against short sellers.
Short Borrow Fee Rises
AMC’s short borrow fee rate has risen substantially compared to earlier this year.
The short borrow fee rate is currently at 44.30% compared to 1% in early 2022.
This is the fee hedge funds pay annually to borrow shares to short AMC stock.
Last week the short borrow fee had increased to96.30%!
This means it’s becoming less convenient to borrow shares at the moment; a risk headstrong short sellers must currently face.
Now it’s costing more than ever to short AMC stock and it’s also riskier than it was prior to this year’s bear market.
Bear markets usually only last about a year compared to bull markets who tend to make it to almost 4 years.
At some point, a reversal is imminent, and short sellers who fail to close their positions while they still can, will be caught in a massive tide.
An AMC short squeeze is a ticking timebomb, and unless stocks can drop forever, it’s one you cannot disarm.
