Investing

Wednesday's Wounded Meme Stocks: AMC, BlackBerry, Canoo

Paul Ausick

Published: June 16, 2021 1:29 pm

Last Updated: June 18, 2021 1:50 pm

The poster child for skyrocketing meme stocks has got to be AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC). Shares have risen more than 800% in the past 12 months, including a 2,400% jump so far in 2021. Still, no analyst has a rating higher than Hold on the stock, and five of nine brokerages have put a Sell rating on the shares.

Of 285 million shares of AMC stock that traded hands on Tuesday, more than 48 million (almost 17%) were shorted shares. That’s less than the nearly 23% of AMC’s float that is sold short, so that indicates that some short sellers were happy with their positions. They should be even happier Wednesday with AMC shares trading down more than 11% in the noon hour.

Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. (NYSE: BB) burst to a 12-month high of nearly $29 back in late January, before sinking to below $8 by mid-May. On June 3, the stock reached $20 again before drifting down to close near $14 on Tuesday.

While the company’s QNX real-time operating system for automobiles could be a long-term winner, there seems little reason for the stock to trade higher than around $10. The stock traded down more than 8% in the noon hour Wednesday.

EV maker Canoo Inc. (NASDAQ: GOEV) came public in late December and has dropped nearly 50% of its value since then. Since mid-May, however, shares are up about 56%, but the momentum stalled after an early-June spike. Shares added more than 16% on Tuesday to close above $11.

About 28% of Canoo’s float of 99.33 million shares was shorted at the end of May. A comment Tuesday on r/wallstreetbets that Canoo “can be a tremendous play for both long and short term gains” probably got the ball rolling, along with an announcement from the company that it would hold an investor’s day on Thursday. The stock traded down about 9.6% at midday Wednesday.

With some afternoon trading still to come, AMC shares were down about 10.6% for the day to $52.78, in a 52-week range of $1.91 to $57.34. The average daily trading volume is 146.3 million and about 114 million shares had traded so far Wednesday.

BlackBerry stock traded down about 8.7%, at $12.77 in a 52-week range of $4.37 to $28.77. The average daily trading volume is about 39.2 million shares, with nearly 32 million having already been bought and sold in the first half of Wednesday’s session.

Canoo stock traded down about 8.3% to $10.13, in a 52-week range of $6.51 to $24.90. The stock trades an average of around 5.8 million shares a day, and 6.8 million had changed hands Wednesday.