What is AMTD Digital and why did its shares jump 32,000%?

Shares of a little known tech company based in Hong Kong have soared as much as 32,000 per cent since its Initial Public Offering last month.

AMTD Digital made its stock market debut two months ago, reported $25million in revenue last year and has just 51 employees.

At one point, it had a market valuation of $300billion, similar to Mastercard which has annual revenues of $25billion, with its share price hitting $2,555.

What is AMTD Digital?

AMTD Digital is a Hong Kong based investment company that is an arm of AMTD Idea Group, which is listed in New York and Singapore.

The company has launched a ‘metaverse’ called AMTD SpiderNet in February and is mainly used by fintechs and online influencers. The idea is to collect fees and commissions from both sides.

AMTD Digital listed on the New York Stock Exchange two weeks ago, pricing its IPO at $7.80 a share and raising $125million in proceeds. Yesterday, the price jumped to $2,555 – since then, it has fallen to $1,300, still up 16,500 per cent. 

AMTD Idea Group has also benefited from interest in the company. It surged more than 520 per cent on Tuesday, triggering trading halts as more and more investors piled into the stock.

Ben Laidler, eToro’s global market strategist said: ‘AMTD Digital market capitalization of around $300 billion would make it a top-20 stock in the S&P 500, despite having insignificant revenues.

‘For comparison, its market value is now similar to that of Mastercard, the world’s second largest card payments processor, that has annual revenues of $25 billion. This will not end well.’

Why has the share price exploded?

AMTD have not made any major announcements since its IPO to prompt such an explosion in the share price. It has led to some suggesting it is merely a continuation of the meme stock phenomenon, in which everyday investors push up the price.

Laidler said: ‘Global IPO activity this year has slumped 50 per cent from its all-time high levels of 2021 as the bear market has taken its toll.

‘But the dramatic price surge of fintech AMTD Digital since its recent IPO shows that speculative excesses remain alive and well in some corners of the market. 

‘There are clearly a lot of investors plugged into social media who are looking to take advantage of a big momentum trade in a relatively low volume stock, in similar fashion to the well documented instances in 2021 with Gamestop and AMC.’

A cursory look on the Reddit thread Wall Street Bets, which drove the Gamestop phenomenon, shows there was no reference to AMTD before yesterday. So what else could be driving the share price explosion?

Even AMTD is none the wiser. In a thank you note to its investors, the company said to its knowledge ‘there are no material circumstances, events nor other matters relating to our company’s business and operating activities since the IPO date.’

It added it was monitoring the market for any ‘unusual trading activities or abnormalities.’