CHART OF THE DAY: AMC Entertainment has plunged 99% from its meme-stock peak to all-time lows

• AMC Entertainment stock has plunged 99% from its June 2021 peak of a split-adjusted $726.20 per share.
• The movie theater chain has struggled to reach profitability despite a rebound in the box office.
• The 99% crash in AMC represents the end of the meme-stock trade that rocked markets during the pandemic.

Our Chart of the Day is the stock price of AMC Entertainment, which has crashed 99% from its June 2021 peak to fresh record lows.

The movie theater chain has struggled despite the post-pandemic rebound in box office ticket sales and new growth initiatives, including selling its own branded popcorn and investing in a Nevada gold miner.

AMC hit a split-adjusted peak of $726.20 per share during the meme-stock craze in 2021, when shares of GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond, BlackBerry, and other left-for-dead names skyrocketed, in part driven by demand from retail investors.

Bed Bath & Beyond has since gone bankrupt, BlackBerry stock has plunged 88% from its 2021 peak, while GameStop is down 87% from its peak.

The box office is still in recovery mode since the pandemic. In 2023 it generated just over $9 billion in ticket sales, representing a 21% jump from 2022, but still well below the pre-pandemic level of more than $11 billion in 2019.

Despite the jump in movie ticket sales, the movie theater chain is still losing money. According to the latest quarterly report, AMC's adjusted net loss for the first nine months of 2023 was $200 million, narrowing from a loss of $575 million in the year-earlier period.