Stonks. An intentional misspelling of “stocks” that originated with an internet meme. The meme shows Meme Man in a suit standing in front of a bunch of numbers and a big orange arrow. It is subtitled “stonks”. It was originally a way of talking about amateur or bad financial decisions.

A meme stock is a stock that has seen an increase in volume not because of the company’s performance, but rather because of hype on social media and online forums like Reddit. For this reason, these stocks often become overvalued, seeing drastic price increases in just a short amount of time.

Movie theater operator AMC Entertainment had its moment as a meme-stock the same time it was staving off bankruptcy, which illustrates how little the stock’s rise was related to the firm’s fundamentals. The firm burned through $5.2 billion in free cash flow (FCF) from 2014-2019.

Shorting, or short-selling, is when an investor borrows shares and immediately sells them, hoping he or she can scoop them up later at a lower price, return them to the lender and pocket the difference. But shorting is much riskier than buying stocks, or what’s known as taking a long position.

Most Shorted Stocks

Even after GameStop, Tesla remains the most shorted stock in the world. Between 2017 and 2021, investors shorting Tesla lost $52 billion; when going back to 2010, the number is closer to $57 billion. GameStop short sellers, by contrast, lost an estimated $8.4 billion, according to data from US exchanges analyzed by S3.

When a stock is heavily shorted, and investors are buying shares — which pushes the price up — short sellers start buying to cover their position and minimize losses as the price keeps rising. This can create a “short squeeze”: Short sellers keep having to buy the stock, pushing the price up even higher and higher.

No. AMC Entertainment is still heavily shorted and undervalued. With the share price currently trading below $10 it’s a steal.

Share Statistics

What happened. Shares of AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) plunged nearly 15% Tuesday after Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) said it would make two of its most-awaited movies available for viewing on its streaming service the same day they begin showing in theaters.

Gamma describes how the image transitions from black to white, and affects all the grays in between. A high gamma, that is a significant curve, means a wider range of shadows will be darker. It can make an image look dark and contrasty, and can obscure details in shadows.

There are no set rules regarding how long a short sale can last before being closed out. The lender of the shorted shares can request that the shares be returned by the investor at any time, with minimal notice, but this rarely happens in practice so long as the short seller keeps paying its margin interest.

The term “squeeze” is used to describe many financial and business situations, typically involving some sort of market pressure. In the financial world, the term is used to describe situations wherein short-sellers purchase stock to cover losses or when investors sell long positions to take capital gains off the table.