AMC Entertainment: the meme-stock years in the short data, 2021 to 2024

What the data showed

AMC entered 2021 with 21.00% of its shares outstanding reported short and, like GameStop, saw its shares rise many times over in January and again in June 2021 on concentrated retail buying. The reported short position fell through the first rally as positions were covered, then rebuilt over the following years as the company issued new shares repeatedly to repay debt.

The high in this window was 27.95% on 30 Apr 2024. The percentage is sensitive to the denominator: AMC's shares outstanding changed enormously over these years, through the 2022 preferred equity units, their conversion into common stock, the one-for-ten reverse split of August 2023 and the at-the-market share sales that followed, so the same number of shares sold short represented a shrinking share of the company.

Why the chart has steps

Every US percentage here is FINRA's reported shares short divided by the shares outstanding from the company's own SEC filings. When a company's share count jumps, the percentage steps down until the short position catches up, and when FINRA's count reflects a reverse split before the filing does, our pipeline holds the figure back rather than publish a wrong one. By 31 Dec 2024 AMC's short interest stood at 12.97%.