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AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.’s eager retail investors have vaulted the company’s market value to $14 billion for the first time, Bloomberg News reported. Shares extended an intraday rally to soar 49%, the most since late January, at 3:15 p.m. in New York, as the Leawood, Kan.-based company’s value jumped to a record. Volume was also high, with more than 600 million shares changing hands, more than four times the average of the past five sessions. AMC’s revival has been fueled by individual investors eager to save the movie theater industry after it raised more than $1 billion in financing to avoid bankruptcy over recent months. The stock is up more than 1250% year-to-date. Chief Executive Officer Adam Aron has embraced the Reddit-fueled rally and talked to new retail investors on conference calls. The stock has more than doubled since AMC reported quarterly results on May 6, adding more than $10 billion in value. Thursday’s milestone stands out against a market value bottom of $216.8 million, which was hit in April 2020.

Far more Americans are receiving unemployment benefits than the last time the jobless rate was at its current 6.1%, thanks to a major expansion of the federal safety net that has provided aid to millions of people out of work, the Associated Press reported. Yet many businesses and Republican officials say that all jobless aid has contributed to worker shortages in some industries, which is why most GOP-led states are moving to cut off the federal support. About 15.8 million people received unemployment aid through one of several benefit programs during the week of May 8, the latest period for which data is available, according to a Labor Department report Thursday. That’s nearly eight times as many people as received jobless payments in August 2014, when the unemployment rate was where it is now and roughly the same proportion of adults had jobs. The primary reason for the expansion is that the government created two emergency programs in last spring’s pandemic-relief legislation. About three-quarters of all unemployment beneficiaries — nearly 12 million people — are receiving aid through one of those federal programs. One of them provides payments to the self-employed and gig workers, who had never been eligible for jobless aid before. The other program benefits people who have been unemployed for more than six months. Both are scheduled to end Sept. 6. Yet 20 states have announced this month that they will cut off the emergency aid early, beginning as soon as June 12, according to an Associated Press analysis, including Texas, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina. As a result, about 2.5 million people will lose all their unemployment benefits by early July. Those states are also ending an extra $300 weekly federal payment to the unemployed. Four other states, including Florida and Arizona, are ending the $300 payment only. Collectively, those cutoffs of aid coincide with a steady decline in the number of people applying for jobless benefits. The government on Thursday reported the fourth straight weekly drop, to 404,000, the lowest level since the pandemic erupted in March of last year.

President Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget today that would take the U.S. to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II as he looks to fund a sweeping economic agenda that includes large new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change, the New York Times reported. Documents obtained by the Times show that the budget request, the first of Biden’s presidency, calls for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031, with deficits running above $1.3 trillion throughout the next decade. The growth is driven by Biden’s two-part agenda to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure and substantially expand the social safety net, contained in his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, along with other planned increases in discretionary spending. The proposal for the 2022 fiscal year and ensuing decade shows the sweep of Mr. Biden’s ambitions to wield government power to help more Americans attain the comforts of a middle-class life and to lift U.S. industry to better compete globally. The levels of taxation and spending in Biden’s plans would expand the federal fiscal footprint to levels rarely seen in the postwar era to fund investments that his administration says are crucial to keeping America competitive. That includes money for roads, water pipes, broadband internet, electric vehicle charging stations and advanced manufacturing research. But it also envisions funding for affordable child care, universal prekindergarten and a national paid leave program — initiatives that Republicans have balked at bankrolling. Military spending would also grow, though it would decline as a share of the economy.

Democratic state treasurers are warning Congress against a GOP pitch to repurpose funds from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law to pay for infrastructure investments, The Hill reported. In an open letter to lawmakers yesterday, 14 Democratic state treasurers argued that taking funds from the COVID-19 relief measure would imperil the economic recovery. “These investments are already getting shots in arms and protecting the jobs of teachers, firefighters, health care workers and law enforcement. They will ensure not only recovery from the losses of the pandemic, but actually help reach pre-pandemic forecasts of economic growth,” the state treasurers wrote in the letter, which was spearheaded by Invest in America Action, an advocacy group pushing for a robust infrastructure package. “Now that the road to recovery is clear, some members of Congress are considering clawing back these vital funds to pay for other priorities,” the letter continued. “As State Treasurers and guardians of our states’ fiscal health, we urge Congress to resist calls to raid COVID relief funding. The risks are too great and will cause a longer, more difficult economic recovery for everyone.”

The heads of major U.S. retail banks faced renewed criticism yesterday from Democratic lawmakers who said financial institutions should not have charged Americans billions of dollars in overdraft and other fees during the pandemic, Reuters reported. Testifying before Congress for the second time this week, the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. highlighted their banks' efforts to waive fees and offer more affordable accounts after Sen. Elizabeth Warren attacked them over the costs. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who bore the brunt of Sen. Warren's ire during Wednesday's Senate hearing, said his bank waived $400 million in overdraft fees for customers who asked for help since the pandemic began. Warren had slammed JPMorgan for gathering $1.46 billion in such fees. On Thursday, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, another Democratic critic of Wall Street, also raised concerns that banks had "raked in" fees "at a time when individuals and families across the country are struggling." Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf was pressed by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney for charging "predatory" overdraft fees on debit card transactions. Scharf, who is trying to turn Wells Fargo around after its six-year sales practices scandal, said the bank was looking to be "more consumer-friendly." He said it had recently launched an overdraft-free account that is "probably" now its most popular.

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy of hotel owner Eagle Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust is considering referring two of its shareholders to prosecutors for possible criminal conduct over accusations they absconded with government COVID-19 relief, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. At a hearing on Wednesday, Judge Christopher Sontchi in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., called the behavior of Taylor Woods and Howard Wu “beyond the pale,” “reprehensible” and an “abuse” of the U.S. government’s “attempt to help businesses survive the pandemic.” On Friday, Eagle Hospitality alleged that the businessmen, part-owners of the Singapore-based company, received $2.4 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds without authorization on behalf of hotel operations at the Queen Mary ocean liner in Long Beach, Calif. The two used the money for their own benefit, according to the company’s court filing. Eagle Hospitality, which has 15 U.S. hotels, said it has asked Woods and Wu to return the loan proceeds to no avail, and believes the funds have been depleted in ways not intended by the PPP, the popular source of forgivable, government-backed loans set up early in the pandemic, mainly to aid small business. PPP loans can be forgiven if they are mostly used to avoid layoffs. Eagle Hospitality has said it worries that it could be on the hook for repaying a loan it never received. Judge Sontchi said yesterday that he believed that fraud had been committed against Eagle Hospitality and that he would consider referring the matter to federal prosecutors for further investigation.

Kennedy Lewis Investment Management LLC is suing the lenders that took control of the New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts gym chains out of bankruptcy, saying the chapter 11 sale they orchestrated left the company in a precarious state, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Kennedy Lewis, formerly the largest single lender to the chains’ parent company, Town Sports International Holdings Inc., said the company’s other lenders put together a flawed deal that fell apart, forcing the investment firm to accept shares in a “virtually worthless” company. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York federal court, alleged that lenders including Abry Partners LLC, Apex Credit Partners LLC and CIFC Asset Management LLC breached their credit agreements during the Town Sports chapter 11 case. The Kennedy Lewis lawsuit “is factually wrong, legally meritless, and jurisdictionally improper,” lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP representing lenders targeted by the lawsuit said in an emailed statement. The lenders named in the lawsuit intend to seek damages against Kennedy Lewis, possibly in the Delaware bankruptcy court where the case belongs, or in federal court in New York, the lawyers said. Abry, Apex, CIFC and others engineered a proposed deal to buy out Town Sports’s assets in bankruptcy, along with private-equity firm Tacit Capital LLC. But Tacit later backed out of a promise to put $47.5 million in capital into the company. Tacit’s commitment wasn’t binding, according to the lawsuit.