Nearly a year after a rumor based on anonymous sources made the rounds that Amazon.com (AMZN +0.81%) was interested in acquiring AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC +4.10%), a new translation of that article in France had traders bidding up the movie theater's stock as if it was new news.
There was little to hang a hat on that a deal would happen in the original report, and that remains the case today with the republished account.
Image source: Getty Images.
Still going it alone
An article appeared in Forbes France today discussing speculation the e-commerce giant was kicking the tires on the beaten-down theater owner. Yet readers had to get to the bottom of the article to find out it was a translation of an article that appeared in the U.S.
While the article noted the report was "pure speculation," what it didn't say was the original article was published last May.
That apparently had stock traders not bothering to read the whole piece thinking this was fresh news. AMC shares soared 19% in premarket trading, but opened up 9% at over $6 per share. The theater owner's stock has become especially volatile in recent weeks after being part of a Reddit rally against short-sellers that saw the stock surge 800% in value in a matter of days before crashing back to its pre-short-squeeze level.
The stock remains up over 160% so far in 2021, helped by having staved off bankruptcy by raising over $1 billion, which will allow AMC to survive at least through the rest of the year.
