AMC Gets Crushed

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC), the stock of which has been whipsawed by rogue traders, day traders and sophisticated hedge funds, has posted a 52-week low. Despite all the people who made money in the shares, some must have been crushed as the price collapsed. The reason for the sell-off is the most time-tested reason in the financial world. AMC is a dying company.

AMC shares traded for $54 apiece last June. They currently change hands for barely $5. Rival Cinemark suffered from a downgrade by Credit Suisse from Outperform to Underperform. Simply put, the reason for the action was that there are few movies on the horizon expected to bring in hordes of people.

An analyst who spoke to CNBC said that AMC has enough cash for the time being. But does it have a viable business? Eric Handler, media and entertainment analyst at MKM Partners, said, “I think they can limp along for many years with their current balance sheet.”

Blockbuster films are not even the most pressing problem. Streaming services, particularly those from Amazon, Disney, HBO, Hulu and Netflix, have over 100 million U.S. customers among them. Some households have two or three of these services. These households have access to tens of thousands of films and TV series. Amazon and Netflix have become their own studios, and their productions are not available in theaters. AMC is trapped with limited inventory.

AMC’s problem is rare among large American companies. It has nowhere to turn for new revenue, so the best management in the world cannot save it.

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