More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Meme mania has returned to the stock market with a vengeance.
Shares of movie theater chain AMC, video game retailer GameStop and struggling home furnishings retailer Bed Bath & Beyond soared Monday, extending last week's big gains.
AMC was up 16% and has now spiked 70% in just the past five trading days while Bed Bath & Beyond shot up 40% Monday and has more than doubled in the past week. GameStop rose 12% Monday and has gained 30% in the last five days.
What's going on? All three consumer stocks have rabid followings among individual investors on Reddit and other social media sites. These investors are hoping to punish professional hedge funds and big institutional firms who have bet against these stocks by short-selling them. Short sellers profit when a stock goes down.
This army of traders has galvanized on Reddit to support these so-called meme stocks —even though there are serious questions about the companies' fundamentals. All three firms are expected to lose money this year and next.
Streaming media services and gaming downloads pose challenges for AMC and GameStop. Bed Bath & Beyond just ousted its CEO following less than three years on the job after the company reported lousy results in June.
But none of that matters to the "apes" on Reddit, a nickname that many meme stock fans have adopted for themselves. GameStop and AMC also seem to relish their underdog status.
GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen, who also founded online pet retailer Chewy, tweeted after GameStop announced a new NFT marketplace in July that the "left for dead retailer just launched something new." The tweet ended with the flushed face emoji.
Cohen's RC Ventures firm is the top investor in GameStop and also has recently bought a big stake in Bed Bath & Beyond.
AMC is taking its appreciation for the apes one step further. The company announced earlier this month that it plans to reward shareholders with a special dividend to be paid in the form of an AMC Preferred Equity unit, a new class of stock that AMC has applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "APE."
AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a press release that the company is "rewarding and recognizing our passionate and supportive shareholder base." AMC also intends to issue an "I OWN APE" NFT exclusively to those investors.
Even as short sellers continue to circle these meme stocks, the apes may have the upper hand for now.
AMC shares are down 5% this year. That's not as bad as the broader market and is a relatively small loss considering the stock soared nearly 1,200% in 2021. GameStop is up more than 20% in 2022, following a nearly 700% pop last year. Bed Bath & Beyond is still down more than 20% on the year, though, despite the recent surge.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”