The End of Stock Market Fundamentals?
Summary
AMC is embracing the retail crowd, offering free popcorn and other perks to shareholders and, more important, raising much-needed cash by issuing more of its suddenly turbocharged shares. • None A new survey by Wells Fargo found that about a third of teenagers said they were learning financial lessons from the internet and social media, and almost half were more interested in investing thanks to the GameStop phenomenon. • None The S.E.C.’s chairman, Gary Gensler, said at a hearing last month that his staff will report this summer on policy issues revealed by the recent volatility of meme stocks, including “the rapidly changing face of social media and its intersection with our capital markets.” He said that although online forums serve as a “real community” for many, he fears their vulnerability to the “risk that nefarious actors may try to send signals to manipulate the market.” The more that stocks swerve on factors seemingly unrelated to underlying business factors, the more likely that regulators will feel the need to act — but how? In other shareholder activism news, Elliott Management has taken a roughly 10 percent stake in the data storage company Dropbox, DealBook has confirmed. The brewing giant said it would “buy America’s next round” of beer, seltzer or a nonalcoholic drink if 70 percent of American adults receive at least one dose of vaccine by July 4.