Billions of shares sold short, market manipulation, and CitadelOver the past few months, the AMC/APE craze has been underway, with plenty of retail investors spamming various social networks and prompting others to buy the company’s shares. As per the information in tweets, memes, and messages, this retail investors’ uprising aimed to bring down hedge funds, with the central target being Citadel.
There were numerous instances during this time when people claimed the price of shares would burst into multiples if all investors stuck together and continued buying collectively, not allowing hedge funds to buy shares and close their short position (leading to their downfall). In fact, during this period, we encountered numerous statements about billions of shares being sold short. Meanwhile, only about 513 million shares were outstanding for AMC and 519 million for APE in the third quarter of 2022. At the same time, the short interest on AMC shares amounted to approximately 20%, with 101 million shares being sold short; and only 33.5 million shares of APE being sold short.
These figures obviously deviate too far from what the retail narrative promotes. Furthermore, many people promoting this narrative and encouraging others to buy shares do not seem to realize what they are doing might be potentially criminal and classified as market manipulation. Furthermore, a lot of information concerning the whole craze is entirely wrong. Many people seem confused about “wrapped-AMC token” with over 8 000 000 000 000 000 in supply being related to the AMC company. However, anyone can create a token and name it “AMC token,” regardless of whether it is associated with the company. As for Citadel, we have failed to find any disclosure of their short position on AMC/APE during the respected period.
In our series of tweets last month, we warned that the regulator has most likely learned a lesson from 2021 and would step in and halt trading if buying activity picked up significantly. Shortly after that, that is what occurred when the regulator poured cold water on the rally with a temporary halt to trading. Year to date, shares of AMC are down approximately 70%, which is far away from what was promised by those shouting “buy and hold.” Therefore, this whole situation should serve as a reminder of being cautious about what you see and listen to. Always do your due diligence.
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In the 2021 meme stock hysteria, shares of AMC jumped up as high as 44.61$.
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DISCLAIMER: This analysis is not intended to encourage any buying or selling of any particular securities. Furthermore, it should not be a basis for taking any trade action by an individual investor. Therefore, your own due diligence is highly advised before entering a trade.
