AMC surges past $30 Friday amid blistering five-day rally bolstered by Reddit

• AMC Entertainment rallied as much as 34% at Friday open, continuing a five-day hot streak.
• The stock surged past $30, the highest in years.
• AMC stock price has tripled this week amid renewed hype from retail traders.

Shares of AMC Entertainment resumed their blistering rally Friday, skyrocketing more than 30% to surge past $30 - the highest price in years.

As of Friday, AMC has been on a five-day hot streak amid hype from retail traders on Twitter and Reddit, causing the stock price to triple since the beginning of the week. The shares reached a high of $36.35 Friday. Short sellers have taken a major hit.

On Twitter, the hashtags #AMCSTRONG, #AMC500K, and #AMCAPES have been trending. Meanwhile, on Reddit's Wall Street Bets forum, AMC was the most talked-about stock, according to HypeEquity data. Retail traders posted familiar phrases like "diamond hands" and "to the moon" in reference to the stock's continued rally.

AMC stock gains have caused major losses for short sellers with short interest in the stock at 21%, according to MarketBeat data.

With Thursday's rally alone, AMC shorts lost more than half a billion dollars, data from market research and data firm ORTEX revealed.

Meme stocks, popularized by retail traders on Wall Street Bets, rallied broadly this week, with gains in GameStop, Virgin Galactic, BlackBerry. and relative new favorite, Beyond Meat, all rising.

The meme stock rally this week has left short sellers with $2.76 billion in losses from GameStop, AMC and Virgin Galactic, ORTEX said.

The rally in AMC shares began early in the week when the company's once largest shareholder, private Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, sold nearly all of the rest of its stake. Redditors cheered the newly available shares, saying the company was now theirs.

Bloomberg reported that the share rally might help AMC pay off its $10 billion in debt, as investors suggest the theater chain should sell more shares to pay down or refinance.