AMC options volume spiked to 300,000 contracts because retail traders think a three-hour movie about a Greek guy trying to get home will save a theater chain that can't figure out how to sell popcorn at a profit.
The movie is called "The Odyssey." Christopher Nolan directed it. It will play in AMC theaters. This is somehow being interpreted as a catalyst for a stock that has spent the last three years teaching people what the phrase "dilutive capital raise" means.
Options traders saw the headline and immediately started buying calls. They did not ask whether one film release has ever permanently fixed a company's balance sheet. They did not check how much debt AMC is carrying. They did not wonder why the executive team keeps selling shares into every single pump. They just saw Nolan's name and started clicking buttons.
The apes are calling this a comeback. They are using the word "squeeze" again. They are posting rockets and diamonds and whatever other emojis make them feel like they understand gamma exposure. They are not posting screenshots of AMC's cash flow statement, because that would require opening a cash flow statement.
Here is what will happen. "The Odyssey" will have a big opening weekend. AMC will collect its share of ticket sales. The stock will maybe move for a day or two. Then everyone will remember that AMC is still a company that sells overpriced candy in buildings that smell like industrial carpet cleaner, and the stock will go back to wherever it was before someone decided a film adaptation of ancient Greek poetry was a reason to buy weekly calls.
The real odyssey is watching grown adults convince themselves that box office revenue from a single movie is going to offset years of structural decline in an industry that got kneecapped by streaming services and finished off by a pandemic.
Odysseus took ten years to get home. AMC shareholders are going to need longer.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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