AMC’s action is caught soon. Shares increased by 180%.

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AMC Entertainment Holdings

trades on a 52-week high on Wednesday, caught in a strange euphoria that affects several stocks of troubled companies.

Actions (ticker:

I HAVE C

), among the weakest performances in the last year, increased by up to 300% in morning transactions and were stopped several times based on extreme volatility.

AMC shares rose 611%, despite multiple sales of dilutive shares by the company in recent months. The trading volume is more than 54 million shares, according to FactSet. Almost 40 million shares are sold short.

AMC is currently trading at about 180%, at about $ 14. Shares have risen 105% in the past year, compared to a 15.8% gain in the S&P 500.

But AMC has spent much of the last year in crisis. The pandemic forced the largest cinema operator to close locations or restrict occupancy, killing box office sales. Other movie chains have had to deal with the same problems.

The stock joins a small group of companies that have been caught in a strange force between professional short sellers holding down positions and retail investors who use Reddit forums and Robinhood accounts to buy and encourage others to do so. .

The biggest example, of course, is

GameStop

(GME), the video game retailer whose shares have risen above $ 350.

Bed Bath & Beyond

(BBBY), up 30% on Wednesday,

blackberries

(BB), increasing by 15% and

Etsy

(ETSY), which fell 3%.

The increase in transactions disrupted several online brokers on Wednesday, according to MarketWatch.

AMC has raised money to amortize them until the pandemic is released and those returning to cinemas return to cinemas with record numbers recorded in 2019. This week, the company’s CEO, Adam Aron, said in a statement that, with $ 917 million raised since mid-December, a bankruptcy has been on the table.

It had been considered in recent months whether the company could raise enough money to survive.

The fact that AMC has sold shares to raise capital may make its high share price easier to bear, said B. Riley analyst Eric Wold.

“Although the recent movement of AMC shares has been extraordinary, we remain positive about the prospects for the internal box office coming out of the pandemic and we believe that the success of management in securing enough capital to avoid bankruptcy in the short term has been clearly a positive for investors, “said Wold Barron’s in an email. “And as AMC remains in the process of consolidating its capital structure and liquidity, we would imagine that the stock move is welcome to the company.”

An AMC spokesman was not immediately available.