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Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1. https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%) NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar. https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866 NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis !!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should. In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase. Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below: https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success. “Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.” https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.” https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing: “Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.” “According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently: https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress. Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait. https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing: “For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.” “In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.” They are profitable across all three of their current business segments. “Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world. "Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.” Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame: “As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn. The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :( He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :) Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw. I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this: “Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy. “Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money? “Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.” Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose. I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.” “Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.” Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong. Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will. Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way. Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains. TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here: WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here: https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.” STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon. Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
LONGEVITY Complete a LifeComplete a full life All you have to do for this one is die. You probably have it by now, but if you're super attached to your first Bitizen, you can always save your Bitlife and play somebody else wastefully or hold out until they pass. OctogenarianSee your 80th birthdayNonagenarian90th birthdayCentenarian100th birthdaySuper-centarian110th birthdayMega-centarian120th birthday Get on a healthy diet and garden and meditate twice a year. I like Nutrisystem. It's expensive, but I have advice for managing that below... Strong GenesAchieve a 500-year generationLong Lineage1000-year generationLiving Legacy5000-year generation Never don't have kids. I like leaving everything to the youngest child and playing as them, but that won't make your kids happy with you or your heir. Your call. Either way, it helps to have a couple Bitlifes going in case you get tired of living carefully. Sometimes you're gonna want to be more reckless, you know? WEALTH MillionaireBecome a millionaireMy Second MillionAchieve a net worth of $2m Now that we have Royalty and Sports, this is a lot easier. Traditionally, if you're hot (95%+), drop out of high school and get your GED ($1k, you can do that in a couple years of dog walking/freelance gigs) and wait for a singer or actor career. If not, work hard in school and go to the gym often. Check your parents' stats and if they're generous make sure you pass your drivers test (maybe even ask if you can get a nicer one! immediately sell your car, they lose value fast) and take a martial art. It's much cheaper if they pay for it ($1K per tier in some countries) and gets you in good shape. If you're athletic, grind at a sport from middle school onwards. If you're not, try some athletic-adjacent clubs and go to the gym and for walks often. Pets count as additional walks which you can take from age 8+. When you're in good shape you can get a soccer scholarship (which can become a/)or a professional sports contract. More sports tips below, same with other careers. Basically try to get famous, not through politics. Or be hot and marry rich/have rich parents who die/be royal. MultimillionaireAchieve a net worth of $10mRichNet worth of $20mSuper RichNet worth of $50mStinking RichNet worth of $100m Get a couple million first, then invest it in real estate. Or do ads if you're famous and it won't ruin your career. Helps to be big on social media for influence on that stuff. Fix up 1M+ houses and flip them when they've hit a value of 2 or 3 million. If you've got great karma or you're a religious figure of some kind, exorcise some mansions. You can do it all that way, or keep grinding careers. BitionaireAchieve a net worth of $1b It's hard to get here from 0. Helps to leave everything to your youngest kid before you die after living a long, fruitful life. You can let your kid "take over" your assets at any time without tax now, that's the best way to do it. Then as soon as they're 18 make them famous/invest in real estate and repeat. CAREER ActorBecome an actor Be hot. You can drop out at 16 and get your GED for $1k (ask your parents for money or do freelance gigs for a couple of years). If you're not, go to the gym and for walks often. Pets count as additional walks which you can take from age 8+. Grind at a sport in school if you can to keep your health well and get plastic surgery at 18. Generally if your appearance stats are low it's either a nose job or liposuction that will fix it. Always go to the best plastic surgeon. Marry rich if you have to or work for a couple years if you have to, but start the career as soon as you can. Always work 5 more hours a week than required and compliment your supervisor if their coolness is high. Sleep with people in Hollywood (bosses coworkers etc). Your spouse/parent will generally be mad if you're in rude magazines, so hold off on dating unless they're cool or make them deal with it. Airplane PilotBecome an airline captain Grind in school and keep your mental health well. No drugs but drink if you feel like it, just make sure you can go to AA or whatever. Always work 5 more hours a week than required and compliment your supervisor if their coolness is high. If you're rich and you've inherited an airplane or you can afford lessons, take them. Go to University for a science thing that isn't biology lol. Start your Pilot Apprentice job. At Inner PeaceWork 75 years as a monk Follow my longevity tips above and don't party or drink or do drugs. Always be honest. Meditate. Don't date. CandywriterWork for Bitlife Be born in Tampa, United States. Go to university for Information Systems. You'll get the achievement right away when you're hired. CEOBecome a CEO Go to school for Finance. Get a job. Work hard every year. DentistBecome a dentist Go to university for biology, then dental school. Work hard every year. DoctorBecome a doctor Go to university for biology, then medical school. Work hard every year. Fire ChiefBecome a fire chief Stay in good shape. Work hard every year. Jack Of All TradesHave 10 careers in one life Work at retail and food service jobs for less than a year, then go to university to get even more opportunities. Keep going for different paths. JudgeBecome a judgeLawyerBecome a lawyer Go to school for english. Go to law school. Work hard every year. Last ResortSeduce your boss to save your job Be hot. Work fewer hours than required at your job. Make sure your supervisor is attracted to your gender and low professionalism. When your boss tries to fire you, seduce them. People Person Start with your less popular coworkers and work your way up. Pay attention to their stats so you know what they want. Get hard-to-get people with Bitlife Bitizenships ($5). Combat Armed & DangerousKill someone with a learned martial art move Get to the top level of a martial art, (especially in prison) pick someone old to attack. Start a fight with them. Midieval AttackGet attacked with a midieval weapon Kinda chance. Just keep picking fights. You can get into a lot of fights if you're rude at nightclubs or to people on the street. Sometimes if you attack your loved ones or enemies with a weapon they'll kill you with a sword or something. No GrasshopperEarn the top belt in a martial art Each martial art has 10 tiers. They can cost $1k+ if you're an adult so if you've got generous parents take advantage. Sensei SanEarn the top belt in every martial art Have health above 50% when you take a martial arts lesson. Follow above tips. Parents will probably only pay for one set of lessons, so pay for the other arts yourself as an adult. At $10k per martial art, it will probably cost you $40k-$50k. Disease AddictedSustain 3 addictions at once Play Blackjack or go to the horse races often with mid-tier mental health. Get addicted to pills or some other hard non-psychedelic drugs. Start drinking last b/c it'll kill your health. Try not to let your Bitizen get depressed or you might die, lol. All addiction is dangerous so it may take a few tries. Bubonic PlagueContract the bubonic plague Have low health and luck out. I got it in the UK. Foam at the MouthContract rabies Try to take home every wild animal you see. One might bite you. If you succeed, take it to the vet. If it doesn't have rabies, release it. If it does, don't treat it! Take it home and bathe it until it bites you. SicklyContract 10 diseases in one life Best if you're not vaccinated, but just have mid-tier health and be really social. All afflictions count. Successful RehabHave rehab cured at a rehab center Go to fancy rehab if you can afford it. Do it from your military deployment to go AWOL. WitchcraftGet cured of a disease by the witch doctor Eye of newt and cow tongue are iffy. Always start with health at 100. They've fixed cancer and sickle cell for me. Entertainment BitBoiWatch Bijuu Mike on YouTubeBTS ARMYGo to a BTS concert Keep asking friends to watch YouTube/go to concerts every year until you get those options. Movie JunkieGo to 5 movies in one lifeMoviegoerGo to a movie Go to the movies every year. It's good for your relationship if you go with somebody. Fame Brightest StarAchieve maximum fame Actor, model, writer, athlete career path. Keep doing every bonus thing (talk shows, books, pose nude, commercials) and verify on social media. CenterfoldPose for Wank magazine Agree to pose nude every time until you get it. I think this one has women mostly but I can't remember. EndorserGet paid $2m for a commercial Easy if you're a high paid actor or model doing an international commercial. K-PopBecome a famous Korean singer See my wealth advice. Follow it with the "background singer" career and start in Korea. Fertility DNA DonorMake 25 sperm donations in one life This one is hard b/c you can only do it once a year and only until a certain age. So start at 18 and don't stop. I think you have to be American. Maybe UK and Canada too? Not legal everywhere. Try not to miss a year. Fabulously FertileHave 10 children in one lifeFertile MyrtleMother 25 children in one life Meditate every year. Start at 18. You have to be cis. Eat healthy and exercise. Get boyfriends and have unprotected sex with them so you don't get STDs. You can be a mother up until like 51 if you're healthy and lucky. Keep having sex until you get pregnant. Smart SeedGet artificially inseminated with lawyer sperm Start at 18. You have to be cis. Be fertile (tips above). Keep pulling up the option to get artificially inseminated until a lawyer comes up. Don't listen to your partner if they don't want you to do it LOL. Super SpermHave 100 children in one life Be a cis dude. Meditate. Be handsome. Have a million girlfriends. Use the dating app to keep dating young women. Don't abandon any kids but leave girlfriends as soon as they're pregnant. Hire every surrogate that will take you if it's legal. Sue them for the max ($200k) if they bail (not miscarry). Three's CompanyHave triplets Sometimes this happens if you're a dude with luck or while you're doing Super Sperm. Sometimes if you're a woman it's luck too or when you do IVF with your partner's sperm or other artificial insemination. Military Career MilitaryServe your full career in the military Tips for staying alive below. Retire as soon as you can. GeneralAchieve the rank of general in the military Be a good Army person. Grind at work like 5x a year. Keep in shape. Be nice to your seargeant. AdmiralReach the rank of admiral in the military Be a good Navy person. Grind at work like 5x a year. Keep in shape. Be nice to your seargeant. Absent Without LeaveGo AWOL in the military Be deployed with an addiction and check into rehab. Whoops. ExcavatorClear 10 minefields Be deployed, and use a minesweeper solver to not die if you suck at minesweeper. Pet Adopt Don't ShopRescue every pet in the shelter You gotta have a few houses. Then you're good. You gotta do it all in one year so have like a lot of houses. Like 5 at least. Tips for getting rich above. Horsing AroundOwn 50 horses in one life You gotta have a bunch of ranches. Buy a few horses a year. Tips for getting rich above. Just Keep SwimmingBuy a goldfish and release it. You can do this one as a kid too if your parent gets you a goldfish. Natural SelectionRescue every pet in the shelter This one took forever. Just keep buying dangerous exotic pets and rescuing every dangerous animal you see. It's luck. No ProbllamaBuy a Llama Buy a ranch in Afghanistan. Go pet shopping. Prison AftermathEscape prison in a riotInstigatorPrison riot Get good at Snake. Keep rioting. Works best in low security. Takes a couple tries, kind of luck. Behind BarsSpend 50 years in prisonTrue Lifer75 years in prison Do a murder in a country without the death penalty (Canada). Murder with full health at 18. Get a prison job. Meditate and work out every year. Keep your head down. Try half-heartedly to escape every once in a while so you don't accidentally get parole or something. But if you get out you can always go back. Rob a bank or something. But keep your health and behaviour up in case you get sick and need to go to the infirmary. GangstaJoin a prison gang Go to a medium or higher security prison. InmatingGet a lover pregnant on a conjugal visit Be a cis man with high fertility. Have a good relationship (80%+) with an 18 year old cis woman. Make sure she isn't on birth control. Do a small crime, get a prison job, and meditate. Request a conjugal visit. JusticeGet freed from prison by appeal Be rich. Wait a couple years after you're sentenced for something non-violent. Mercy MeGet granted clemency Be a nun or a monk for 50+ years. Don't retire. Do a murder. Get a prison job. Meditate, work out, go to the library, and write letters to home. You won't know until the year you're scheduled to die, so hold on. Midnight ExpressGet sentenced to Turkish prison Be born in Turkey. Do a crime. TheseusEscape a supermax prison There are a ton of Bitlife prison guides. Do a murder and escape from death row. Royalty ExecutionerExecute 5 people Be king. Or queen. Top dog, either way. It helps to have enemies or friends to make enemies. MarkleMarry into the royal family Be a commoner in a country with royals. Be cute. Go on lots of dates. It'll pop up and be part of their name. They could be a viscount or whatever, no member of the royal family is too far removed. MonarchBecome a monarch Start as prince or princess and inherit the throne. NapoleonGet exiled to a distant land Keep executing people. And do a bunch of disservice. Reign Over UsReign as monarch for 100 years In a country where Prince/Princess is top monarch or where your king/queen parents are low health/dying, keep your health up until you're a super-centarian (see above). Sports CantonGet inducted into the football hall of fame Be a great football player. Be famous. Play as long as you can. Keep being famous after football as long as you can. I stopped being famous at 40 and got inducted at 60. ChristianoWin the Ballon d'Or Be a European soccer player. Keep winning championships (see below). Full RideWin an athletic scholarship Start playing sports in middle school. Become captain of at least one team with a pro league. GiggsyWin 13 career championships You can train each stat up twice in a turn if you trade teams, but you'll lose respect, so pick your moments. Grind your whole life. Keep going to the gym. Trade teams when you guys start losing. Stay on top. HookerYell at a leopard Try out for professional rugby with high athletic stats. Choose Hooker as your position. LanceWin a championship while doping It's safest to dope the year after a drug test. Try it for your second or third championship. Real Estate House HunterMake $2m from flipping a house Buy a $2m house. Leave it to your kid. Sell it. See above. Mansion PartyThrow a party in a mansionReal Estate MogulPurchase real estate worth $10m combinedTrailer PartyParty in a trailer Pretty straight forward. If you're broke start with the trailer party. Then buy mansions. Advice for getting rich above. School Brothers ForeverGet hired by a frat brother Be a jock. See sports advice above. When you're in two sports at university, compliment the jocks' leader. Be good looking (plastic surgery if needed, see above) and google the answer to the question if you need it. Google high-level frats and pick one. Then when you get hired after school one of them might hire you! Earning that ASeduce your teacher Be really attractive and compliment your teachers who are attracted to people of your gender. Take the opportunity to sleep with them if it arises. Naughty ChildGet expelled from school Be rude as hell to the principal/headmastedean Swimming Star Start swimming as young as you can and stay in shape. "Work harder" every year. Social Media Social MediaJoin social mediaSocial Media SharerPostSocial Media OversharerPost 5 timesSocial Media StarGet a million followersCheck!Get verified Join all social media platforms at 13. Be pretty and keep posting. Follow above advice to get famous in any public career to get more followers. Start with Instagram for verification around 100k. By the time you're a lead actosupermodel/etc you'll have 1m followers. Vehicle AntiquedKeep a car running for 200 years. Buy a brand new car. Do maintenance twice a year. Pass it on to your kid (18+) and repeat. Car collectorAssemble a car collection worth $1mLamboBuy a Lamborghini Buy a lambo and a bunch of other fancy cars. Who cares. See advice above for money. Not The Yellow OneBuy a submarine You need $5b for this to show up reliably. Titanic TroubleRun into trouble on a yacht Have a shitty yacht or shitty luck. Go for a bunch of rides. Animal Animal RescueRescue an animal Helps to have 100% smarts. Read childrens books so you don't have to tap too many pages. It'll only take two or three. Deaf LeapordYell at a leopard Buy a leopard from the exotic animals dealer and yell at it when it misbehaves. Gorilla and the FistGet decapitated by a gorilla I had to buy so many gorillas from the exotic animals dealer to get one crazy enough to decapitate me. Just keep bathing it and letting it attack you every year until it kills you. UnicornFind a unicorn Go for like 10 walks a year. Have good karma. Hungry Hippo !!! NEEDED !!! Apparently Egypt is good for this. Lion Tamer !!! NEEDED !!! Apparently Kenya is good for this. Crime Balcony BuccaneerSteal 100 packages in one life It's a lot easier to avoid punishment by wielding your title if you're a monarch. This one took me ages as a civiliian. BurglarBurgle 25 homes in one life Play Snake well Cold KillerKill 10 people in one lifeSerial KillerKill 25 people Start with random homeless people. If you're a royal exert your title to avoid punishment. Keep buying your way out of prison as long as you can. Then start killing other prisoners, start with the oldest and work your way down to the strongest ones. Work out and meditate every year. Pay guards for protection if you can but you probably won't be fucked with if you keep strong and murderous. DillingerRob 5 banks in one life If you're royal you'll get away with it. Make sure you have a getaway car either way. Clown mask/closest equivalent and handgun/closest equivalent work best. Scare to DeathScare someone to death Do a murder but pick scare to death. Works best if they're old. Bugatti Bandit !!! NEEDED !!! Going Anywhere !!! NEEDED !!! LOVE Black WidowWidow 5 husbands in one life Start using the dating app when you're 18 and go for old guys. Best if they don't have kids and if they're rich. Propose after you fuck when your relationship is at 100%. I like to be on birth control for this. Golden AnniversaryBe in a marriage for 50 yearsDiamond AnniversaryMarriage for 75 years Keep seeing movies together and fucking and complimenting each other. Cute as hell. Just marry young and try to both stay alive. Fake ItPropose successfully with a fake ring Works best if you're rich and they love you and they're dumb. Family PlannerConvince a lover to go off birth control Be a cis man. Be in a strong relationship with a cis woman. Ask her to go off birth control. Easiest if you're married to her. Maiden NamedMarry a man who takes your last name Marry a man and don't change your last name. Kind of a luck thing. Make sure your relationship is strong. MultigamistGet married 10 times in one life Pre-nups and widowing make this easier but do you. Love them and leave them. If you're a young guy it's really easy to get older women to agree to marry you. StudHave 100 lovers in a single life Hook up like crazy. Date all you can and fuck all of them. Use protection so you can stay alive. Wedding PlannerAgree to an arranged marriage I did this in India as a woman with wealthy, religious parents. Bejeweled !!! NEEDED !!! General All AlongHave a parent who comes out of the closet Could be luck. Or you can cheat it with a Bitizenship by making both parents gay and unreligious. BegoneExorcise your own ghost Be an exorcist. Buy a haunted house. Do what you do best. Booty CallHave a successful Brazillian butt lift Be healthy and have good karma. Use the best doctor. Cross your fingers. They still only work 1/3 of the time. Cliff DiverGo cliff divingHeroSave someone's lifePlayer PerksAccept a casino's hospitality offerSnake SnackEat a snakeZAP!Get struck by lightning Random event Dignified DonorDonate a 1m+ heirloom to charity Get your heirloom every day. Appraise it. Donate the first $1m+ one you get. Flamin' HotSurvive 60 years on a Hot Cheetos diet Get liposuction every couple of years and work out and walk a lot. Have no other conditions. Do your best. Get pets for more walks. Garden. Try to survive. Start at 18. Flee the CountryEmigrate to escape justice Escape prison and emigrate FrankensteinSurvive 5 botched plastic surgeries Keep going to the bad doctor. Go for risky procedures like butt lifts. Space them out to get your health back up. Goat GrabberJoin a goat grabbing team Be athletic and join a goat grabbing team at school in Afghanistan Human DictionaryRead the dictionary So much tapping. But eventually it will show up in your books. Be strong. HyperthymesiaScore 20 sequences on the memory test The worst part of Bitlife. I did this one by writing 1,2,3 or 4 on a piece of paper according to which # square lit up with my right hand and doing the puzzle on my phone with my left hand. Still took like 5 tries and was really frustrating. Take breaks and come back with a clear head. JackpotWin the lottery jackpot Keep your karma high and buy 10 tickets 5 times a year. You'll get it eventually. LowrollerGet refused entry to a casino Bet more money than you have on Blackjack. Once you're out of prison, try to come back. They'll turn you away. NightmareWake up from a nightmare As a pilot, buy a terrible plane. When it crashes, accept your doom. You might wake up. ParanightmareContract PTSD after a paranormal experience Try to have bad mental and good physical health (a hard balance. Try gardening, dieting, and fighting with friends or loved ones) and then try to exorcise stubborn ghosts. PerfectionAchieve perfect stats Pretty easy. Work out, get plastic surgery (lipo or nose job to start) and go for walks, read children's books (3 should get you to 100%) and go to the movies or on vacation. Rich JusticeWin a $1m+ lawsuit Get fired from a really high paying job like CEO and win your lawsuit. Run Bitizen!Win a bet on BitizenThere's Always CanadaEmigrate to CanadaWinnipeg, Eh?Visit Winnipeg Wait until it pops up as an option Say Goodbye To HollywoodGet deported from the United States Move to the U.S. without permission. Get caught doing a minor crime. SkeezyGet called "skeezy" Be an asshole at nightclubs and in the streets. Fight with your friends and coworkers, insult them and start rumours. SweepstakesWin the sweepstakes Set it up on a day where you'll be by your phone. Sign up every time you can. Try & Stop MeViolate a restraining order Stalk your ex. Do it again after they file a restraining order. Ultimate BetrayalYour spouse leaves you following a gender reassignment Have a terrible relationship with your heterosexual spouse. Get gender reassignment surgery. UnethicalBribe a college official Be rich and have dumb kids. Roswell !!! NEEDED !!! Sacrilege !!! NEEDED !!!
Gemma Arterton is a stunning and delightful Hollywood entertainer cherished by a large number of fans far and wide. She is known for her dynamic parts in endless hit films like Quantum of Solace close by genius Daniel Craig, Clash of Titans, Prince of Persia, and so on She has likewise functioned as a film maker in number of movies. Early life Gemma Arterton was conceived in the year 1986 on February 2. Her ethnicity is English as she was brought up in the antiquated town of Ken district, Gravesend, in England. Her mom, a Sally-Anne store, brought forth her in North Kent, a Hospital, and she was brought into the world with an additional finger in her grasp yet was taken out not long after her conveyance. Arterton's conceived an offspring name is Gemma Christina Arterton, and had a pretty normal life. Her dad, Barry J. Arterton, used to function as a welder in an iron production line while her mom used to maintain a cleaning business. After the division of her folks during her youth, she was raised by her single parent. She is the more youthful sister of an entertainer, Hannah Arterton. Arterton joined the Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, where she began acting. She substantiated herself a decent entertainer in the wake of winning the best entertainer prize for her presentation in the play called The Boy Who Fell into a Book. To become familiar with acting, she left her school and joined the North West Kent College and in the end got a full grant to examine acting in show school called Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from the public authority. https://preview.redd.it/k3eugp5uv4161.jpg?width=384&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f93e6e09fc9e4fcac983122a79afc64564849b6 Vocation Gemma Arterton began her expert acting vocation from the TV arrangement called Capturing Mary. She was still in her show school during recording for that arrangement. The very year, she made her stage debut by showing up in the play called Love's Labor's Lost of Shakespeare, where she depicted Rosaline's character. She likewise made her film debut the very year by showing up as Kelly, a Head Girl in the British satire film named St Trinian's. Not long after her film debut, she showed up in the film Quantum of Solace, which is one of the James Bond motion pictures and Casino Royal arrangement. She played close by star Daniel Craig depicting the personality of Strawberry Fields for which she won the Empire Award for Best Newcomer. The very year in 2018, she showed up as one of the heroes in 4 hour TV transformation, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Following month, she showed up in the TV sequential called Lost in Austen, depicting the personality of Elizabeth Bennet. Gemma Arterton made her featuring job debut in 2009 in the spine chiller film, The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Her job was profoundly applauded and gotten a few decent surveys from the crowd. In 2010, she began playing many promising situations in the activity dream films, Clash of the Titans, and a featuring female lead function in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. She likewise assumed the lead function in the play considered The Master Builder the very year, for which she got the assignment for the Rising Star Award of British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2013, Gemma Arterton featured in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters depicting Gretel's character close by entertainer Jeremy Renner. The next year, she assumed the lead function in another play considered The Duchess of Malfi and assumed a featuring part in a frightfulness parody film called The Voices. She delivered another featuring film called Gemma Bovery in 2015. She took in the French language only for the film. For her presentation, she won Glamor Awards for Women of the Year-Film Actress and The WIFTS Foundation International Visionary Awards for The Barbara Tipple Award for Best Actress. From that point forward, she showed up in the play called Made in Dagenham for which she won 2 honors and two assignments. In 2016, Arterton was selected as Best Actress for her exhibition in the play called Nell Gwynn. She was additionally named in British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress for her function in the sci-fi film, The Girl With All The Gifts. From that point forward, Arterton has showed up in incalculable hit motion pictures, and starting at 2020, her forthcoming film will be Summerland, where she is going to assume a featuring job and be simply the leader maker. Individual life Gemma Arterton has dated a few entertainers previously, and the majority of them were the ones she met during the film sets. She began dating John Nolan subsequent to meeting him in the film set of Quantum of Solace. Following a year, she dated a stand-in named Eduardo Munoz which just went on for a half year. By 2015, Arterton was at that point a separated from lady. She was hitched to Stefano Catelli for a very long time. During their separation cycle, she expressed that her next marriage choice will be simply after she achieved something more huge in the acting profession. In the long run, she got hitched to Irish entertainer Rory Keenan in 2019, and we should accept that she is as of now carrying on with her upbeat existence with him. Gemma Arterton is anything but a web-based media client hence, it is generally additionally trying for fans to think about her every day life and the occasions she's spending. Be that as it may, she has huge number of devoted fan accounts by her name who posts about her every film and impending motion pictures. Actual insights Every individual who realizes Gemma Arterton knows how wonderful woman she is. She has an attractive form body with the tallness of 5 feet and 7 inches. Her body weighs around 68 kg. She has dim earthy colored hair tone and eye of a similar shading. Her body estimates 34-28-37 inches. Her identity is white, and her particular element is her voice and highlight that recognizes her from each different entertainer out there. Total assets Gemma Arterton is an effective entertainer; in this way, her net big name worth is assessed to associate with 13 million dollars. She has additionally marked a few agreements with renowned brands like G-Star Raw, an attire organization, and makeup organization like Avon. These supports summarize to her net income.
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (8.97 in average rating) with 41 reviews
Critics consensus: An epic gangster drama that earns its extended runtime, The Irishman finds Martin Scorsese revisiting familiar themes to poignant, funny, and profound effect.
Metacritic: 92/100 (23 critics) "must-see" As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.
De Niro’s always at his best in the context of a Scorsese-mandated tough-guy routine, and Frank Sheeran gives the actor his most satisfying lead role in years. Sheeran appears in virtually every scene, and the story belongs to his colorful worldview the entire time. He may be an aging man telling tall tales, but that puts him in the same category as the one behind the camera. Sheeran, however, lost touch with his world long before he left it. With “The Irishman,” Scorsese proves he’s more alive than ever.
Despite the movie's many pleasures and Scorsese's redoubtable directorial finesse, the excessive length ultimately is a weakness. Attempts to build in social context during the Kennedy and Nixon years, at times intercutting news footage from the period, aren't substantial enough to add much in terms of texture. The connections drawn between politics and organized crime feel undernourished, and the movie works best when it remains tightly focused on the three central figures of Frank, Russell and Jimmy. Netflix should be commended for providing one of our most celebrated filmmakers the opportunity to revisit narrative turf adjacent to some of his best movies. But the feeling remains that the material would have been better served by losing an hour or more to run at standard feature length, or bulking up on supporting-character and plot detail to flesh out a series.
Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” is a coldly enthralling, long-form knockout — a majestic Mob epic with ice in its veins. It’s the film that, I think, a lot us wanted to see from Scorsese: a stately, ominous, suck-in-your-breath summing up, not just a drama but a reckoning, a vision of the criminal underworld that’s rippling with echoes of the director’s previous Mob films, but that also takes us someplace bold and new.
And the big ticket world premiere at this festival is its opening-night film, The Irishman, a nearly three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic from New York’s own hero, Martin Scorsese. The Irishman is less literal about its meta moodiness than Pain & Glory is, but it still speaks disarmingly quiet volumes about what the autumn of life might mean for its creator.
For much of its duration, The Irishman covers familiar ground but is slickly entertaining, if a little repetitive in the third hour. There’s an almost meta-maturity, as if Scorsese is also looking back on his own career, the film leaving us with a haunting reminder not to glamorise violent men and the wreckage they leave behind.
Ultimately, “The Irishman” is a major success for Scorsese—not only does it incorporate the best aspects of his past crime dramas and their thrilling energy, but it adds context to those films and wrestles with their legacy resonantly. In a way, “The Irishman” fills in the gaps between “Goodfellas” and “Casino” to tell the overall story of the mob’s rise and fall in postwar America, but it does so while anchored to one man’s story and morality. The law never catches up to Sheeran—not for the real damning stuff anyway— but as Scorsese demonstrates with profound solemnity, he cannot outrun his conscience.
Nothing this misshapen ever flies—Scorsese once managed to make a movie called The Aviator that was similarly overburdened—yet his all-over-the-place enthusiasm plays nicely against the material’s death stench. Tidy as it may be to expect, Scorsese doesn’t need to cap his career with a sign-off to the gangster epic; that would be way too sentimental for him. What The Irishman does become, in its final hour, is something better, a film about broken trust, to family and God. De Niro’s Sheeran, like the monks of Scorsese’s magnificent Silence, wrecked by spiritual compromise, can't express his pain. This may not be why the average fan comes to a Marty movie, but it’s the statement this director, now 76, feels like making. After so much brilliance, Scorsese is being too hard on himself (maybe this review is too), but when The Irishman is about doubt, it’s as personal as it gets.
People will want to see The Irishman because of De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino all in a mob movie again, directed by Martin Scorsese. And, boy, yes, that’s there. In the scenes where they are younger, the de-aging is … pretty good. I’d say the best I’ve seen so far. But it’s one of those things that if you stare at it, yes, you can see the imperfections – especially when De Niro or Pesci are acting alongside, say, a non-de-aged Ray Romano. But you do get used to it. And the way I look at this is, well, this is the small price to pay to get all these actors together again to tell this story. To star in Martin Scorsese’s phenomenal film about the price we all pay for our sins of youth … even if you or I didn’t kill Jimmy Hoffa. The Irishman is terrific and Netflix got their money’s worth.
As much as they take special care to tell the audience that their characters are rotten to the core, Goodfellas and Casino and another spiritual relative, The Wolf Of Wall Street, have been misunderstood as glorifications; it’s an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of following ugly men with occasionally glamorous lives. Scorsese takes no such chances with The Irishman, a crime epic that pushes further forward in time than most, to a truly ignoble end. Eventually, it reminds us, we’re all just fitting ourselves for coffins.
The film – at three hours and 19 minutes – never flags. The Irishman may not be as groundbreaking as Mean Streets or Taxi Driver, but then again, what is?
Scorsese is so adept at storytelling, and his cast is so unbelievable, that the film, which clocks in at 209 minutes — even longer than The Return of the King and Avengers: Endgame — barely feels its length. The Irishman feels more like being caught in a dream or reminiscence, with all the tenderness we’re willing to afford in those in-between hours. Only Scorsese and his assembled cast, not to mention longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker, could bring that all into reality.
Some may balk at the 209-minute runtime, but there’s never a moment where this story drags. Indeed, the three-plus hours practically fly by, because we’re so swept up in this decades-long journey. There’s not a single second wasted here, because one gets the sense that all the characters are hanging on for dear life – literally. As the years tick on, and their bodies fail them, The Irishman‘s main players find themselves closer and closer to oblivion.
Five decades is a lot of history to hold together, and it could have easily crumbled. Remember “Gotti”? But Scorsese is at the top of his game here. His film is never boring, and it explores some unexpectedly deep themes for mafiosos.
There is no arguing that The Irishman is a masterpiece. It is Scorsese revisiting themes seen in his past work with new elements of excitement, despair, and wit. The great performances and incredible filmmaking make this fictionalized tale of Frank Sheeran a story to end the decade, one that has seen many changes within the film industry — and hopefully introducing a new era of Martin Scorsese.
For the first two and a half hours of its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, The Irishman is clever and entertaining, to the point where you may think that’s all it’s going to be. But its last half-hour is deeply moving in a way that creeps up on you, and it’s then that you see what Scorsese was working toward all along.
Scorsese is probably the last big-budget filmmaker who mostly declines to tell the audience what to think, much less boldface and underline why he’s telling us a story about self-serving criminals and whether he personally condemns them. “The Irishman” doesn’t break with that tradition. The opportunity to sit with the movie later is the main reason to see it. For all its borderline-vaudevillian verbal humor and occasional eruptions of ultraviolence (often done in a single take, and shot from far away) it feels like as much of a collection of thought prompts and images of contemplation as Scorsese’s somber religious epics “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Kundun” and “Silence.” God is as tight-lipped as Frank.
-Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com: 3.5/4 DIRECTOR Martin Scorsese WRITER Steven Zaillian CINEMATOGRAPHY Rodrigo Prieto EDITOR Thelma Schoonmaker Release date: November 1, 2019 (limited theatrical release) November 27, 2019 (Netflix) Budget: $159,000,000 STARRING
Disney, please release the 3-hour 8 min initial The Rise of Skywalker cut as an Extended Edition! [SPOILERS]
I'm new at Reddit and looking back this post became way longer than expected, so hopefully worth the read, my apologies if not. But for sure, there is no doubt a longer version of the movie, and I for one truly believe it would make a major difference in how TROS is perceived, as I’m getting really tired of these, still continuous, media references on how ‘bad’ this movie was. I happen to be one of the many, but less vocal, people that really loved The Rise of Skywalker. Yes, now that it has been analyzed and discussed to death, that ancient Sith knife and how it outlined the death star took some liberties, but it certainly didn’t ruin it for me. The Millenium Falcon light skips were unexpected compared to previous known capabilities, but certainly nothing compared to R2-D2 suddenly flying in the prequels. Palpatine and the thousands of star destroyers definitely could have been explained better, but if I had a real concern it would probably be the pacing, and the lack of downtime between the main characters, which is why I feel an extended version would really enhance the experience and make me and a lot of people even happier. Yes, I realize it was a big thing a couple of months ago with the “secret JJ cut”, but this humble opinion post is more of an equal attempt to argue for why an extended edition would make perfect sense, and equally why the so called general opinion of this epic movie is misplaced, and why it deserves another chance to show its merits. Although I have little doubt that it will become a classic on its own in due time, I firmly believe a longer version would appease some of its more vocal critics, reduce some of its perceived problems, and display its full potential. Let me start by first saying that I don't believe for a second that there are secret versions, that George Lucas has made his own version, or that there was political, behind the scenes, conspiracies against JJ Abrams by Disney. I know that most of you do not believe that either, but I just wanted to emphasize that this is not that kind of a nutcase viewpoint. What I am 100% sure of though is that an initial 3 hours and 8-minute cut exists. How do I know? Well, the chief editor, MaryAnn Branson, said so in an interview, and she should know. She also said that the movie was never going to be that long, so it could be that this cut is filled with stuff that doesn't make sense or has lots of place holders, but I really don't think so. They obviously filmed so much that a first rough cut, just to get an everything-of-interest-in-there version of the film to start editing, would have been much longer than that. No, this is something they worked on, that made narrative sense, and was a solid initial take but too long, and my feeling is that they felt it was too long from a commercial perspective, as opposed to an artistic. This cut may, for lack of a better word, be 'duff' in that it is too slow in some areas or too repetitive or have other problems and it is most probably also missing many VFX shots. But it would seem to me that in between the 142 min we got, and the 188 min they started from, there is, with some goodwill from Disney, a great extended edition waiting to be released. We also know that John Williams originally produced 135 minutes of score, which indicates a considerably longer movie than 142 minutes compared to previous movies. According to co-writer Chris Terrio it was initially such an extensive scope that it was proposed to split the film in two parts. Admittedly, this discussion probably occurred at a story telling phase before actual filming commenced, but it nonetheless indicates a substantially more ambitious approach based on the written material. JJ Abrams has said in interviews that he does not want to do it, as once he is finished with a film he is done. I can understand that. He has edited and created a film into an artistic experience with a certain pacing and feel, and it must be exhausting to go back and open that door again. Ending a trilogy is hard in itself but ending a triple trilogy must be close to directorial suicide, and although I would argue the critique is partly a media phenomenon, it clearly didn’t generate the uniformly positive response he was hoping for, or used to from The Force Awakens. Interviews with JJ have also indicated that he was aware of the challenge and that it would take a miracle to unify the fandom after The Last Jedi. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, had some very solid books that were universally acclaimed to rest on. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had even more movies to conclude than Star Wars, but in this case Endgame was not only an ensemble movie, with many of the characters already having had their own stories examined and developed separately, it was also split into two parts with each of the parts over three hours long. In this perspective it is less surprising that many felt The Rise of Skywalker felt a bit rushed, which, together with some plot devices being underdeveloped, seems to be the most common concerns with TROS. There is probably little debate that, if TROS had another year of development, some of the pure story telling devices might have looked different and would have had time for another review. But more surprising, compared to for example Endgame and Return of the King, is that it was relatively short. A movie of this magnitude, wrapping up something this epic, generational and emotional, is like two movies in one. It must have a story line that allows it to stand on its own, but also allow for some time to say goodbye to the characters and wrap up their individual stories. This was done very well in both Endgame and ROTK, and although TROS displayed fine craftsmanship it could certainly have spent a bit more time here and there. Going from adventure to adventure keeps the audience busy, but the ending becomes more abrupt if you feel there was little to no personal time with the characters. Scenes like Rey building her lightsaber, or Kylo Ren meeting the oracle, does perhaps little for the story itself and certainly pulls down the pacing while making the movie longer (and a lot of viewers most likely don't care or can't stand too long movies), but this is where an extended edition comes in. With an extended edition many of these concerns will fade and feel less significant. Agreed, many times extended editions are pointless and really does not add anything. However, those times it does, such as in Lord of the Rings, which Extended Edition movies were 4 hours long, it truly added nuance and was very gratifying to fans, not to mention sold another truck load of DVDs. An extended edition would generate money for Disney, would renew interest in the canon, and dare I say it would show the fandom that Disney do care. Let's face it, in contrast to common disdain in certain parts of the fandom, Disney has been a tremendously positive incubator for Star Wars in general. The Force Awakens gave it a renaissance that makes it hard to even remember what it was before, unless we only look at the 40+ year old’s that remember the original trilogy from their childhood, trying to convince their kids that the old movies are much more watchable and fun than Ironman and Captain America. A hard sell I would say. Today's youngsters want to be Rey and Kylo Ren, but Obi-Wan or Count Dooku not so much. Solo was perfectly fine and Rouge One gorgeous, an instant classic. And it is not only the movies. Mandalorian is obviously wonderful, which was almost a no-brainer given Jon Favreau’s Midas' touch, and visiting Galaxy's Edge is a fantastic, surreal experience, and it sure was great to get another season of Clone Wars. Nonetheless, TROS did have less than stellar reviews, especially compared to the others. Again, personally I loved it, but it comes back to how expectations have been stratospheric on such an epic wrap-up. I'm arguing that TROS suffered more in the general opinion than anything else by being too short, and that an extended edition could help eradicate some of the issues people had. Everybody knew it would always be a challenge to end this, so no matter what, some people would be disappointed. I get it, some things didn't turn out the way expected, or some things were a bit cheesy. I feel the same way. For example, I've always felt that when scenes or monsters occur in muddy darkness, like most of the end battle and the interactions with Palpatine, it is because VFX was either rushed or on a budget or both, and there certainly were an element of that, and I think that is fair. From all interviews I've read, with Brandon, Abrams, the firing of Trevorrow, there is no doubt it was rushed, they had little to no pre-vis and they even did editing on the set in the end. Yes, concerns we have, but guess what, with the possible exception of A New Hope, I've had these concerns and wished some of it was done differently in every each one of these movies. It is of course not rational, as very few things in life are perfect, but more of an expression of how much some of us care about these movies and want them exactly the way we want them. A religion indeed. I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, so bear with me, but there is also the elephant in the room, with the dilemma of the trilogy’s middle movie having a slightly rebellious director. Rian Johnson decide to somewhat take the story line astray, and in effect 'back-loaded' the third act with multiple story items to clean up. This is not to say the movie was poorly done or bad in any way, and I know many, especially film critics, thought it introduced interesting twists and was cinematographically beautiful. I think we can all agree on that. However, and this is where it becomes divisive, I would argue that that some of these ‘twists’ were not well thought out in terms of its consequences, and did not follow the original intent and therefore introduced massive damage control for the third act. It is not retroactive continuity if you have an overall story arc, even though not fully fleshed out, and the middle part suddenly gives mixed signals that seems to indicate a sharp turn in direction, which the third act then has to spend time clarifying. We've all heard how this sequel trilogy, just like the original, was intended to be written and formed by each part's director. However, there are also numerous interviews with Kennedy, Abrams, etc that explains that there were story points and milestones that had to be met. Quoted from Kennedy interview: “Colin was at a huge disadvantage not having been a part of Force Awakens and in part of those early conversations because we had a general sense of where the story was going,” Kennedy further said, “Like any development process, it was only in the development that we’re looking at a first draft and realizing that it was perhaps heading in a direction that many of us didn’t feel was really quite where we wanted it to go.” There were similar thoughts expressed after TLJ, which is likely why Disney didn't want the same happening to the final movie which had to wrap it all together. If Kylo Ren for example always was meant to have a redemption arc, it is not hard to understand why Disney felt hesitation continuing with Treverrow, similar to the way Rian Johnson likely did in his movie with some elements (that Disney/LucasFilm for some inconceivable reason let slide). We all know the debate, but I have to go there again with two of the most astonishing examples, not to argue a preference per se (although I have one) but more to show the challenge JJ faced after TLJ. First, it is true that Luke were a already on the isolated island at the end of The Force Awakens, but that didn't mean he felt the whole Jedi had to end or that he would refuse to come to his sister's aid. And it certainly didn't mean that Luke Skywalker had turned into a person that would even consider killing his sister's child, who was put in his trust, and in his sleep. To me personally, these are unforgivable character assassinations of my childhood hero, and I think JJ felt the same. Listening to the TFA commentary track, when Rey and Luke looks at each other and she reaches him his old lightsaber, Abrams tells us how he loves the expressions on these two actors, and I quote "Luke looks at her and knows what it means, to accept this plea, and to come back to help". How Disney could allow Johnson to instead then let Luke turn his back on her in this moment, rejecting the plea for help in favor of a hermit life, and making the lightsaber handover a slap-stick comedy moment by having him nonchalantly throw it away, is beyond me. No wonder Mark Hamill continued to have strong reservations about this movie in all the interviews he made. He knew his character, and that is not how his character would have behaved. Second, from a pure logical and story telling aspect it was another cheap trick to circumvent audience expectations by making Rey's parents nobodies. What is the point in that? Johnson have explained it with an interest in exploring what would be the worst that could happen to Rey, comparing it to Luke's father being a dark lord, and in an effort to misguidedly democratizing the force, coming to the conclusion that it would be if her parents were nobodies. Rian, let me explain this for you; Rey is sad that she was left behind and is seeking a belonging, while at the same time desperately wanting to know why. I don't think she for a second cared if her parents were the King and Queen of Naboo or nobodies. Just like George Lucas said himself, these stories rhyme, and I think it was beautiful that she experienced a similar thing as Luke in that her lineage was the worst possible in terms of evil. This is obviously something that is much worse than being a nobody, and it is ridiculous to think that someone like Rey would be disappointed in her parents for not being special or prominent. But regardless, let's just marinate on the term "The Skywalker Saga" and what that indicates. Did Johnson really think that anyone deep down would think it was satisfactory that the original trilogy was about Luke Skywalker, the prequels about Anakin Skywalker and then the sequels about a nobody scavenger girl that gets to enjoy the company, completely unrelated to the bigger picture, of the Skywalkers? It didn't occur for one moment that she would either be or somehow end up a Skywalker, and that this would make more sense? This story was admittedly about Kylo Ren/Ben as well, but it was much more so about Rey. The craftsmanship is wonderful, but this is a director who is obsessed by deflecting expectations, and that desperately wanted to introduce his own take and a clever twist. I'm sorry, but that is just egregious, self-pompous, and utter disrespect for the task given. It is actually easier to come up with plot vehicles that throws everybody off than it is to explain an expected story line in an engaging way. Not everything has to be a detective story. Well, this all became a bit of a rant, but my point is, TROS not only had a story to wrap up, it also had things to clear up that were left confusing from TLJ. Not necessarily retconning, but clear ups, as nothing in TROS really goes against what occurred in TLJ. I really love most of TLJ, and especially now that I can watch it knowing that some of the more questionable choices have been cleared up, but it also fair to say that I like it despite Johnson’s choices, and not because of them. (The casino excursion is still a fast-forward, again sorry, but I like to see one movie at a time. Rose was absolutely great, and I look forward to see Kelly Marie Tran in another movie where she is properly cast, and not shoe-horned in by a director just trying to create his own mark.) You can't please everybody, but with TROS being the end of the saga, many die-hard fans expressed their feelings and it would seem a fair amount of them in wrath. As I myself loved it, it was initially interesting to read these reactions, and what it was that upset them that I had missed. Yes, this is admittedly not Shakespeare nor Ingmar Bergman, or as Harrison Ford himself said "It aint that kind of movie", but beyond all the usual trolls, and the unfortunate swath of people that somehow are attracted to trolls and their negative spew, there were arguably logical, reasonable, and well informed fans as well that were critical. It was as if many almost seemed to go through the classical stages of grief. They were in denial (where is the real JJ cut?), angry (this is all Kathleen Kennedy's fault), bargaining (Disney will erase the sequels from canon), depression (just going to pretend there were only six movies) and acceptance. Acceptance will take longer for these fans, similar to the way it did with the prequels. I believe an extended edition could not only help appease this part of the fandom, but a longer version now that the story is already known could actually allow them to enjoy it with their guard down, and ease the acceptance that their beloved story indeed has come to an end. So were people in general really more disappointed with TRoS than, for example, ROTJ, which capped off the original trilogy back in its days? I took the liberty of looking into this. Starting with Rotten Tomatoes and the infamous 51% score. It is to begin with worth noting is that this score reflects the number of critics who were positive vs negative, and is not a rating per se. 240 critics gave a negative review and 250 gave it a positive. What is perhaps more telling is that ROTJ had an average rating among these of 7.23 out of 10 vs 6.27 for TROS among the top critics. Obvious advantage for ROTJ, but the 51% score for TROS is undoubtedly misleading. Looking at the audience exit score ROTJ have a very impressive 94%, but ROTJ is no slouch either with 86%. In fact, it is the same audience score as for The Force Awakens, and twice that of The Last Jedi at 43%. Looking at the actual audience rating, ROTJ comes in at 4.42 vs TROS 4.31, or close to a tie. To balance Rotten Tomatoes I also took a look at IMDB, where ROTJ have a very solid 8.3 and TROS a much more moderate 6.7. I would argue though that the scores for both TLJ and TROS were unproportionally affected by trolls, as 5% of TROS voters gave it a score of 1 out of 10, which basically makes all of these voters outliers on the bell curve. TLJ fared even worse, with 6.9% of voters giving it a 1. Looking instead at the median, i.e. the actual rating most people gave, it was a solid 8 for ROTJ and a 7 for TROS. Only 1% rated ROTJ at a 1. Based purely on comparing these two movies, it is probably also fair to expect the numbers for ROTJ being slightly affected by nostalgia, as obviously IMDB didn't exist at the time. This naturally apply to all pre-IMDB movies, but nonetheless worth noting when comparing sibling movies like this. In summary ROTJ earned a higher score than TROS, but TROS was held in high esteem with high ratings from its audience, and half of its critical reviewers. It fared less well at IMDB, but even its somewhat lower score doesn't reflect the more vocal complainers. So why did it pull in less money than expected? This one is tougher, as money undoubtedly talks. It certainly wasn’t because of lack of interest. Referencing Wikipedia: "Pre-sale tickets went on sale on October 21, 2019 and the film sold more tickets in their first hour of availability on Atom Tickets than the previous record-holder for ticket sales, Avengers: Endgame. It became Atom Tickets' second-best first-day seller of all-time behind Endgame, selling more than twice the number of tickets as The Last Jedi sold in that same timeframe, while Fandango reported it outsold all previous Star Wars films." So what happened? Again from Wikipedia: "It went on to debut to $177.4 million, which was the third-highest opening ever for a December release and the 12th-best all-time, and it was also noted that Saturday (which saw a 47% drop from Friday's gross) was the busiest shopping day of the year, likely affecting ticket sales." However, wikipedia also notes that: "Deadline Hollywood did write that "we can't ignore" the less than stellar audience exit scores, which could affect the film's legs moving forward." Somewhere here that negativity herd started, and regardless of its motivation, bad word of mouth started to take its toll. For various reasons I had to see it a couple of days after the premiere and people were cheering and applauding in a packed theatre. However, I talked to a friend of mine directly after who asked, "How was it, was it as bad as they say?", which really is telling that something was going on. He went on to see it shortly after and absolutely loved it. I can't count how many reviews or forum comments I've read that said something along the lines that they initially really liked it at the theatre, but the more they read about it they realized it was bad. Besides saying a thing or two about people's strength in their own opinions in this day and age of social media, it is interesting how it almost can become a sport to bring down creative work that has involved thousands of people's hard work, and for what? I'm going to bring up one professional reviewer as an example, because this critic, Scott Mendelson at Forbes, didn't just review TROS, he went on a personal, almost daily, crusade explaining how much this movie sucks and on so many levels. One has to question the motivation behind this, but a recurring theme was how TROS was blatantly retconning TLJ, something Mendelson apparently could not accept nor watch quietly. Or it could just be that negative articles generates better click bait, and that he gets paid based on viewers. His actual motivation doesn't matter, but googling TROS in the weeks after the premiere was sure to bring up at least one or two of his highly critical articles. He was admittedly not alone, but it is scary how general opinion is formed by what it written on the internet, and especially by well-known publications and their factory contributors that has to produce two or more articles a month with high readership. In comparison you seldom see a positive reviewer exposing this kind of behavior, which skews the perception a regular person's experience trying to figure out which movie would be fun to spend money on. I'm not sure why TROS received this kind of predatorial behavior, because even if we hypothetically assumed the movie was bad, clearly it wasn't so bad that it warranted a hunt. I'm sure analytics experts at Disney have been looking at this for months, but it would appear to me that once social media, with top search hits consisting of these pseudo blog journalists and youtubers, sniff out a possible issue with a highly prominent and exploitable event, such as a major film launch, there is endless click bait fodder to be gained. What is amazing is that this drum beat can even topple the marketing machine from a player like Disney. If people say a movie like TROS is garbage they are clearly not being rational, but for some reason almost politically obsessed to interpret things in black or white. (Come to think of it, perhaps this behavior actually do make perfect sense in our current political environment.) We know that Star Wars is a religion, but it never ceases to surprise to what extent. Toxic behaviors like this shows that the threat comes from within, and that we as fans are our own worst enemies. Of course, at the end of the day people love to categorize their impressions in black or white, good or bad, love or hate and I guess it is somehow easier to live life like that. But should at least more main stream media publications show some restraint in their endless click-baiting? I often enjoy bringing up Star Wars with people and I have yet to meet anyone that didn’t enjoy this movie. I have met a few though that haven’t watched it yet but heard it was bad. I recently happened to re-watch The Dark Knight Rises, also a trilogy wrap-up, and some of you are undoubtedly thinking, sacrilegious, how can you even compare these! And the point is you can’t, they are very different movies with different restraints. The Nolan trilogy is truly epic and an astounding and dramatic take on the caped crusader, but it was also very dark and serious. Star Wars is much more adventure, it is supposed to be fun, and it is supposed to have stakes, but at the same time being watchable for a younger audience. One really has to keep this in mind. They both evoke strong emotions, but Star Wars has a bit of safety net built-in that Nolan never had to consider. Nolan further didn’t have to consider neither continuity nor an original creator like Lucas. This also brings the leaked script of Duel of the Fates to mind. It is certainly a very interesting script and I would have loved to watch and experience it. But, I can also see why this would have been another Rian Johnson version that neither fully respect nor rhymes with the previous ones. There were scenes and portions in DOTF I kind of wished Abrams would have kept, but it is also understandable that the story had to feel right and fit into his vision. I guess what I’m trying to say is that is not a question of whether TROS could have been a better movie or not. We know it could, as everything could, but by the same token it could also been a lot worse. It has many wonderful parts, and for most of us it was an amazing movie, that pulled in over a billion at the box office. Disney may not need to, but by releasing an extended edition this movie almost gets a second chance, and perhaps give even the most hard-liner critics a chance to re-evaluate their stance. Perhaps an Extended Edition or Director’s Cut was, and has been, the plan from Disney all along? Something to fill the gap until the next movie or to spice up Disney+? It is certainly odd that we haven't seen any director's commentary, and not a single deleted scene yet. Could it be that these deleted scenes are being saved for a reason? Fingers crossed.
[CSM10] Risk and Conflict in EVE ~Thoric Frosthammer
http://denofiniquity.net/?p=58 A common theme in a lot of blogs, reddit posts and other EVE media at the moment is that risk aversion is creating a lack of content. I am now going to spend a lot of ~words~ telling you why I disagree. The problem doesnt lie with risk aversion, but an out of whack set of play mechanics that produce no good reason to take risks. This applies both to combat in general, and the new sov system in particular. What drives conflict? What drives conflict in EVE are situations where both sides in a conflict feel like they can gamble and win, and the reward is worth the gamble. You can see this in a casino every day. There has to be a small chance of winning, and the greater the risk (the smaller the chance of winning), the bigger the reward needs to be to get them to bet. Lotteries have negligible chances of winning, but people will still throw a couple of dollars at it, because the risk is small, to match the small chance of a positive outcome, because the potential reward is great. If people think they have a greater chance of winning, they will risk much more (their belief doesnt have to be correct, they just have to perceive it to be greater). The enormous battle of B-R illustrates this point perfectly. Manfred Sideous, the FC for PL, believed that it was a good risk to protect his fallen sov system by deploying their trademark wrecking ball of supers and titans, believing that the Imperium (then the CFC) would flinch from a decisive battle between the super capital fleets. This was a good bet, from a historical perspective. The Imperium had been loath to risk its protective umbrella of super capitals in an offensive attack, knowing it would open their holdings to rapid defeat if it was lost. The Imperium on the other hand, looked around and found, for perhaps the first time, that allied with the Rus, they had a super capital numbers advantage in every time zone. Lazarus Telraven bet that this roll of the dice could be the crushing blow that would assure the Imperium a decisive super capital advantage for the foreseeable future, as well as a smashing morale victory. Both sides couldnt be right, but both sides had good reason to believe they were. Battle was joined and the results are enshrined in a monument. That epic battle hinged on the idea of the winnable bet. None of this works, however, when the chances of winning are zero. Theres no winnable bet. Theres no reason to risk. That is the situation with EVEs game mechanics at the moment. Battles are frequently, but not always, simple exercises in mathematics. I dont have links, he does, cant win that fight, run. He has 50% more numbers, in equivalent strength ships, I cant win, run he has 30,000 pilots, I have a couple of thousand, whats the point in invading His fleet hard counters mine, better flee. The only time a fight occurs under those circumstances, is when roughly equivalent gangs, in roughly equivalent ships, with links, happen to encounter each other, or when someone gets trapped and has to fight. Thats a difficult thing to arrange. And its happening less and less. What is needed, in my opinion, is a way to increase the window of winnable bets and therefore encourage people to gamble. In my opinion there are several things that could be done:
Eliminate supercapitals. Just refund the money or materials, the skill points for fighter bombers, and the cost of the fighter bombers, along with the remote ECM modules. CCP is struggling to find a role for these ships and if Im honest, its because they were probably a mistake in the first place. They keep good capital fights, which were previously pretty balanced, from ever occurring. Particularly with the Phoebe changes, local super capital superiority is a virtually unbeatable advantage. There are no supercapital batphones anymore. Remove the doomsday from Titans, if you feel the need to keep them for bridging.
Eliminate Links. One of the single biggest factors in reducing the number of fights in eve is links. Many is the time I have seen fcs pinging for links, knowing their opponent has them, and the fight never happens because they dont get the right numbers. So-called solo or small gang pilots with an alt on links following them have destroyed actual solo and small gang combat. Remove them. Change the skills to leadership, and perhaps a specialist skill, remove the others and reimburse them. individuals with the right fleet command skills and the 2 leadership skills could then simply be slotted into fleet in any ship appropriate for the fleet, giving bonuses from the skills. The skills would be far more widespread, and easier to use. You could use bonuses without requiring extra ships or alts that add nothing to the fun of the game. People would find it easier to simply undock and fight.
Change fleet bonuses to give diminishing returns. Another way to squeeze the window is to create diminishing returns on bonuses for larger fleets. If you reduce the effective difference in power of a 100 man fleet versus a 70 man fleet, or a 200 person fleet against a 250 person fleet, you give the smaller entity hope that, with skill or luck, they might prevail. A no-win scenario potentially becomes a winnable bet. Combat will occur more frequently.
Create new combat scenarios. Right now most fights are zero sum. You either win the objective or you are destroyed or chased off. There is a need for new things to fight over. Things that arent zero sum. I dont have the perfect answer, but in my mind, I see it as an oasis in an African savannah. Everyone needs the water, but each animal has a different way of obtaining it. The small ones sneak in by night using stealth and speed. The medium animals like jackals pick off the corpses left by the large predators, as well as taking out the smaller animals. The big predators squat on their kills and rip the meat from them, fighting all comers. Each of these animals can use different tactics and strategies to get some of the precious resource. Each has a chance of walking away with some of it. Each has a valid reason to believe it will benefit from entering the mix, and each has a winnable bet. Since the objective isnt simply to fight the larger enemy, but to outwit them and escape with some of the resource, theres a non-zero sum game here. Every entity can come in, get a fight, and potentially, thought not always, walk away a winner, sometimes at the same time. Somehow we need to work more concepts like this into the game to encourage fighting.
Sov and the winnable bet I am advised its probably not entirely fair to blame only Fozzie for the mess that is the new sov system at the moment. I agree with that notion, and I will therefore be referring to it as Kafkasov henceforth. Let us return to the casino analogy for a moment. Lets say you pull up to Planet Hollywood for EVE Vegas, you check into the hotel to get your room, and you are told the following: To claim your room, you will have to sit at a table in the casino for a period of time, with the contents of your wallet sitting on the table in full view. You, and whatever friends you can summon, must defend the items on the table in group combat with anyone else in the casino who wishes to claim them until the time expires. The period of time shall be determined by how much free landscaping work you do for the casino. If you are a good boy and dig lots of holes, well reduce the time to 3 hours. otherwise you could be sitting there for up to 18. But thats not all. When you finally get to go to your room for the night, weve hooked all the lights, the toilet flush, the heater and ac and your television to switches in the lobby. Anyone who walks by can turn them off and on unless you decide to come down and have a fistfight with them. Nobody but an insane person would play this game. There
USD (DXY) up 0.08%, EUR down 0.04%, GBP down 0.50%, JPY down 0.12%, CNY Onshore up 0.12%, CNH Offshore up 0.02%, AUD down 0.23%
VIX up 0.65% to 9.25
Gold up 0.13% to $1,269.01
Silver down 0.11% to $16.62
Copper up 0.25% to $305.40
WTI Crude down 0.79% to $50.39
Brent Crude down 0.18% to $56.90
Natural Gas down 0.44% to $2.91
Corn down 0.07% to $3.49/bu
Wheat up 0.06% to $4.41/bu
Bitcoin up 1.55% to $4,414.56
Treasuries 2yr yields are up ~1.3bps at 1.500%, 10yr yields are up ~1.6bps at 2.364% and 30yr yields are up ~0.9bps at 2.899%
Japan 10yr yields 0.045%, up ~1.0bps on the day
France 10yr yields 0.750%, up ~1.9bps on the day
Italy 10yr yields 2.156%, up ~1.8bps on the day
Spain 10yr yields 1.704%, up ~1.8bps on the day
Germany 10yr yields 0.474%, up ~2.2bps on the day
Trading Update
What’s happening this morning? It was another slow evening of news other than the German Aug factory order numbers (which were very strong although the euro and Eurozone stocks are both in the red), a few US earnings reports (COST and YUMC), andsome M&A (GIMO, HON, JWN, PENN/PNK, SNCR, and more). The overall macro narrativeremains the same as it was at the Thurs close (see below for an update on the macro narrative as well as potential upcoming risks). The major Asian indices generally saw gains – TPX +0.28%, NKY +0.3%, Hang Seng +0.28%, HSCEI +0.54%, Taiwan +0.14%, Australia +1.04%, and India +0.5-7% (mainland China and Korea were both closed). There weren’t any huge themes in Asia although Macau casino stocks were weak in HK on back of underwhelming Golden Week visitor numbers (autos and financials led HK on the upside). Australia’s 1% rally was led by banks, miners, and telecoms. The major Eurozone indices are trading off small (~10-20bp); autos are outperforming while banks, retail, energy, and utilities lag. The GBP is extending its losses from Thurs amid more uncertainty around UK PM May (the DXY spiked ~50bp Thurs and is up small so far Fri morning). US S&P futures are trading down 1-2 points.
Calendar for Fri 10/6 – the focus will be on the US jobs report for Sept (8:30amET), US wholesale inventories/trade sales for Aug (10amET), US consumer credit for Aug (3pmET), and Fed speakers (Kaplan 8:30amET on CNBC, Bostic 9:15amET, Dudley 12:15pmET, Kaplan 12:45pmET, and Bullard 1pmET). o US jobs preview – there is very little anticipation or focus on the Sept jobs report (Fri morning 8/6 8:30amET) as 1) most are anticipating large storm-related distortions and 2) at this point in the cycle it only requires ~75K monthly adds to keep the UR steady (as was discussed in this JPMorgan report http://bit.ly/2fbT6cE). The St is in print at +80K for adds (vs. ADP for Sept at +135K and Aug BLS +156K) w/a 4.4% UR (unchanged w/Aug) and wages +0.3% M/M and +2.5% Y/Y (vs. Aug +0.1% M/M and +2.5% Y/Y). It’s very difficult to see the Sept BLS report changing the near-term US monetary policy trajectory (w/ongoing normalization and a FF hike on 12/13). The potential for a hike on 11/1 is very low and if anything the Sept CPI on Fri 10/13 may be a more important data point than jobs on Fri 10/6. Instead, the bigger Fed uncertainty has nothing to do w/data or policy but instead concerns staffing (i.e. who will be the next chair? A Trump announcement could come as soon as next week – Powell and Warsh are the frontrunners according to media reports w/the former appearing to have a slight edge).
Top Headlines for Friday
Eco data recap for Fri morning 10/6 – the big data came out of Germany where factory orders for Aug beat expectations by a wide margin (orders +3.6% M/M vs. the St +0.7% and +7.8% Y/Y vs. the St +4.7%). See JPMorgan’s comments on the German data (http://bit.ly/2y42sh4). Japan’s wage inflation figures for Aug were soft, as expected (http://bit.ly/2kuygr0). o Fed chair – markets would be comfortable w/any of the main candidates (including Powell, Warsh, Cohn, Yellen, etc.) w/the exception of one person: John Taylor. Bloomberg. o Fed update – Kansas City Fed President George spoke Thurs night and said the US economy needed further rates hikes (http://cnb.cx/2kqTiqj). JPMorgan’s Mike Feroli published an updated FOMC hawk/dove chart following the confirmation of Quarles (http://bit.ly/2z1jSti). o Japan’s “Party of Hope” unveils an economic agenda that pledges to rely less on aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus – Reuters http://reut.rs/2ghahXu o AUD hit as RBA’s Harper doesn’t rule out a rate cut in a WSJ article. http://on.wsj.com/2xW3nkD
UK PM May the subject of more speculation amid disclosure of plot to topple her; former party chairman, Grant Shapps, said May’s leadership should now be challenged. Reuters http://reut.rs/2yMrmzB
Spain/Catalonia – Spain’s Constitutional Court ordered the suspension of the Catalan parliament’s regional session scheduled for Mon; Catalonia had planned on declaring independence at the session. Reuters http://reut.rs/2xlDfjC o Spain’s gov’t will change rules and make it easier for firms to move their legal base out of Catalonia – Reuters http://reut.rs/2z1WQCF
Tax update - there is a lot of focus on taxes in the US as the Senate Budget Committee (right at the Thurs close) and the full House (at ~1pmET Thurs afternoon) advance budget resolutions (the full Senate will presumably vote within the next two weeks). This is a necessary step in the tax process (as these resolutions contain the reconciliation instructions allowing tax to pass via a simple majority in the Senate) but also a relatively minor one. Far more complicated will be agreeing on rates, deduction schedules, deficits, etc., and if anything all the press in the last few days and weeks point to divisions within the GOP on these matters being larger than anticipated. o Schumer warns that the proposal to eliminate the SALT deduction will kill the GOP tax plan – Bloomberg. https://bloom.bg/2xXX8KL o GOP desire to repeal the estate tax runs into resistance - from Republicans. As a result this piece of the 9/27 tax blueprint (among others) may wind up being scrapped - WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2gf9G8E o Fed officials express concern over tax plans – Fed officials warned the tax plan may only provide a temporary boost to growth while fueling inflation and driving debt to unsustainable levels – Reuters http://reut.rs/2xWMrdG
Republican headaches keep growing as donors withhold money, a tax consensus fails to materialize, and “establishment” figures depart the scene (Strange losing to Moore, Corker retiring, etc.). Republican leaders are increasingly concerned about the party’s grip on the House and Senate should it fail to pass a tax bill. Leaders “fear that the inchoate populism that Mr. Trump personifies, and which Mr. Bannon is attempting to weaponize against incumbents, is on the march” – NYT http://nyti.ms/2y3lUKT
Trump looks to jolt NAFTA – the White House is considering a proposal that would represent a radical shift to the principles underlying NAFTA. According to rule changes being considered, automobiles would need to have a specific level of US-made content in order to qualify for tariff breaks (right now autos only need to have a specific level of content from within the NAFTA region). WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2y4LXlo
Trump makes cryptic comment ahead of a dinner with US military leaders. Trump said the dinner might represent “the calm before the storm”. Asked repeatedly by reporters to clarify his comments, Trump said, “You’ll find out” – Bloomberg https://bloom.bg/2xXI2r6
Trump was “furious” over NBC’s Tillerson “moron” article; John Kelly was forced to rearrange his schedule and stayed in Washington in order to try and calm tensions – NBC. http://nbcnews.to/2fOGx3B
Iran/Trump – Trump will “decertify” the Iran nuclear accord next week (speech on 10/12) and declare the agreement as not being in the US national interest according to the Washington Post (article out at ~2:40pmET Thurs afternoon). This is consistent w/what the AP and Politico reported earlier in the week. Note that Trump’s 10/12 declarations won’t end the Iranian nuclear pact as it will be up to Congress whether re-impose sanctions on Tehran (and Trump will hold off on recommending such a step). Washington Post http://wapo.st/2z1zeOw o Decertifying the Iran Deal Wouldn’t Have to Kill It – WSJ http://on.wsj.com/2y40dKY
North Korea – US lawmakers are pressuring the Trump White House to toughen sanctions against North Korea – WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2xlKdVQ
The Economist's lead article this week speaks to sentiment at the moment and this is one of the big reasons why stocks are proving to be so resilient. "Asset prices are high across the board. Is it time to worry?" (http://econ.st/2xVXOjv). o The WSJ notes that a key European junk-bond index is now yielding less than 10yr US TSYs although it offers a reasonable explanation for this ostensibly irrational price level – WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2xkwYVb
Company-specific news update from Thurs night. There were a few earnings reports out Thurs AMC but for the most part it was another slow evening. COST EPS beats thanks to better SG&A and favorable tax while GMs were light; Sept same-store-sales beat w/upside in the US (the stock ended down 3% during the Thurs after-hours trading session). YUMC’s results came in ahead of expectations (EPS/same-store-sales) and it increased capital return. SNCR reentered M&A talks w/Siris Capital (Siris is looking to buy SNCR’s Intralinks and may take a ~20% equity stake in SNCR); SNCR ended up ~27% during the Thurs after-hours trading session. According to the WSJ, HON is pursuing an acquisition of Evoqua Water Tech in a deal that could be worth $3B (http://on.wsj.com/2yseCSp). The WSJ reported (during trading on Thurs http://on.wsj.com/2xjE24p) on merger talks between PENN and PNK (the firms have been unable to agree to terms but PENN is still interested in buying PNK).
JWN buyout not completely dead – the Nordstrom family is exploring a new deal structure w/Leonard Green that would involve less debt. The family is trying to raise more equity (although it isn’t clear where the money will come from). WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2ggTvbh
GIMO – Elliot’s takeover talks w/the company have ground to a halt according to Reuters over price disagreements – Reuters http://reut.rs/2fNCepo
SUM, ASHG – SUM has made a rival bid for ASHG as it looks to scuttle the existing Ash Grove-CRH PLC transaction. Ash Grove’s board said the offer could result in a superior proposal and that it would engage in talks with the third party. Bloomberg.
AMZN: the one market where Amazon is failing to dominate: Hollywood. The WSJ discusses AMZN’s failure to become a force in content. WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2xZcJtr
Macau casino stocks slump during Fri trading as Golden Week visitor numbers disappoint expectations – Bloomberg https://bloom.bg/2fOuGmd
Identifying risks – what could go wrong?
Reflation enthusiasm is undercut by less aggressive CB normalization, dramatic curve flattening, and/or a softening in nominal growth. Of all the reflation pieces (monetary policy normalization, expansionary fiscal policy, firming inflation, and ongoing real growth strength), the last piece (real growth) is increasingly being taken for granted.
Bank investors wind up focusing too much on reflation/yields (which are tailwinds) but miss weakening credit (higher provisions) and tepid loan growth.
The first speech by the next Fed chair unsettles sentiment (assuming the chair isn’t Yellen).
The tax process slows in Washington as Republicans prove incapable of reaching a consensus on rates, deductions, and deficits.
Paul Ryan decides to “pull a Boehner”, stepping down as Speaker out of frustration with his inability to pass legislation.
The final tax bill results in materially higher rates for upper-income Americans.
May winds up stepping down as UK PM, sowing ongoing Brexit uncertainty.
Abe does much worse than anticipated during the upcoming Japan election (10/22).
North Korea conducts an above-ground nuclear bomb test (or even worse, an atmospheric test).
Iran decides to resume its nuclear weapons program, sparking an immediate escalation of Middle East geopolitical tensions (Trump’s Iran speech is coming up on 10/12).
Washington introduces (or threatens to introduce) tough new regulations aimed at internet/social media companies following the Russia election investigations (note that US internet giants will be testifying before Congress on 11/1).
Prominent members of the Trump team decide to leave the gov’t (the market would be particularly sensitive to Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, and/or Cohn departing; recent media reports suggest the Tillerson-Trump relationship is particularly strained).
Macro Update
The pro-reflation bias commenced back on 9/11 and has been propelled ever since by ongoing real growth strength, firming inflation, normalizing monetary policy/rhetoric, and expansionary fiscal policy (in particular in the US w/the 9/27 tax blueprint but also in Germany following that country’s election outcome and fin min change).
This enthusiasm can extend for a few more weeks but the ECB/BOE decisions (on 10/26 and 11/2, respectively) will mark the culmination of a series of pro-reflation catalysts/developments and thus the trade may enter a period of extended consolidation around those central bank events.
Meanwhile the nuances of this present reflation process aren’t being appreciated – growth and corporate earnings are late-cycle (not early), multiples are already rich (although not necessarily ridiculous), inflation is only very gradually firming to target, the economy faces enormous structural headwinds in the form of labor supply and productivity growth, and while central banks are normalizing policy will stay extremely accommodative for years to come (the structural headwinds and slow tightening pace will prevent yields from materially rising and curves from significantly steepening).
The tenor of sentiment is beginning to evolve and there is definitely greater frustration w/people being forced to participate in a tape many don’t particularly love at present levels – this helps fuel runs such has occurred over the last few weeks (the SPX hasn’t closed in the red since Mon 9/25) but it also makes for a precarious setup w/a lot of weak “renters” who will be quick to sell the minute momentum pauses.
Bottom Line: the lack of major catalysts is helping the rally propagate and the calendar is relatively clear until earnings (which kick off w/banks on Thurs 10/12). The reflation impetus will likely stay in place into the ECB/BOE (10/26 and 11/2, respectively) after which a consolidation (at least) is likely (note that a lot of the “easy” tax steps are occurring now – the blueprint on 9/27, the budget resolutions, etc. However, reaching a consensus on rates, deductions, and deficits will be extremely difficult and this will become more apparent later in Oct and into Nov, around the same time as the ECB/BOE decisions).
Calendar of events to watch for the week of Mon Oct 9
Calendar for the week of 10/9 – overall it should be a relatively slow week although a few items are in focus. The current reflation emphasis makes the US CPI on Fri 10/13 prob. the single most important eco data point of the week but there are other numbers in focus (German trade/IP for Aug and China imports/exports for Sept). The CQ3 earnings season kicks off in earnest with the banks on Thurs and Friday. Away from scheduled events, media reports suggest Catalonia could formally declare independence on Mon (although this could easily be delayed following court challenges and as the region’s leaders seek a settlement w/Madrid) while the White House may unveil its infrastructure spending blueprint during the week of 10/9 (http://bit.ly/2wwiop9). South Korean security officials have warned that North Korea may fire additional missiles between 10/10 and 10/18 while Trump’s Fed chair selection could come soon (media reports suggest Powell and Warsh are the two frontrunners). Trump is expected to deliver an Iranian policy speech on/around Thurs 10/12 during which he will declare the nuclear deal as no longer being in the US national interest. HON has said it will announce its formal portfolio review decision prior to earnings (media reports, including on CNBC, suggest it will retain its aerospace unit).
Calendar for Mon 10/9 – the day should be pretty quiet owing to the US Columbus Day holiday (equities will be open but fixed income is closed). The focus will be on the China FX reserve numbers for Sept (Fri night/Sat morning 10/7), the China Caixin services PMI for Sept (Sun night/Mon morning), Germany’s industrial production for Aug (2amET), and earnings (LVMH reports results after the European close).
Calendar for Tues 10/10 – the focus will be on the German trade figures for Aug (2amET), a bunch of analyst meetings (including TECD, Santander, WDAY, and WMT), the PG shareholder meeting (at which the Trian/Peltz board seat request will be voted on), and earnings (CUDA after the close).
Calendar for Wed 10/11 – the focus will be on the US JOLTs report for Aug (10amET), Fed minutes from the 9/20 meeting (2pmET), analyst meetings (KR), and earnings (DAL, BLK, FAST, and OZRK before the open).
Calendar for Thurs 10/12 – the focus will be on Eurozone IP for Aug (5amET), the US PPI for Sept (8:30amET), Trump’s Iran speech, analyst meetings (BOX, HPQ, LSCC, and WDC), and earnings (C, DPZ, JPM, LNN, Sky PLC, and Tata Consultancy pre-open).
Calendar for Fri 10/13 – the focus will be on China’s imports/exports for Sept (Thurs night/Fri morning), the US CPI for Sept (8:30amET), US retail sales for Sept (8:30amET), the Michigan Confidence numbers for Oct (10amET), US business inventories for Aug (10amET), analyst meetings (SAFM), and earnings (BAC, DRFG, FHN, FRC, JBHT, Man Group, PNC, and WFC pre-open).
Catalysts – big events to watch over the coming months
China mainland markets closed Mon 10/2-Fri 10/6 for the National Day holiday.
US jobs report for Sept – Fri 10/6.
US infrastructure spending - the Trump White House may unveil its long-anticipated infrastructure plan during the week of 10/9 according to House Transport chairman Rep. Bill Shuster.
North Korea - South Korea’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said he expected Pyongyang to act around Oct. 10 and 18 (Reuters).
WMT analyst meeting – Tues 10/10 (note that KR has an analyst meeting the next day, Wed 10/11).
PG shareholder meeting – Tues 10/10 (decision to be made on Peltz’s board seat request).
Fed minutes – minutes from the 9/20 meeting will be released Wed 10/11. 2pmET.
HON – the co will announce its portfolio review decision before earnings in Oct.
Iran - Trump is planning to deliver an Iran policy speech on 10/12 and he is expected to say that the landmark 2015 nuclear deal is no longer in the U.S. national security interest (AP)
Bank earnings – the CQ3 earnings season kicks off w/Citigroup and JPM Thurs morning 10/12 while BAC, PNC, and WFC all report Fri 10/13.
US inflation – the Sept CPI will hit Fri 10/13.
IMF/World Bank - 2017 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. Oct 13-15 in Washington.
CQ3 earnings – the week of Mon 10/16 is the first busy week of the CQ3 reporting season.
Fed chair decision during the week of 10/16? Based on Trump’s “two to three” weeks comment (on Fri 9/29), his decision on a Fed chair could come as soon as the week of 10/16 (this week is also the first busy period of the CQ3 earnings season, the deadline for Trump to rule on the Iran nuclear deal, and the beginning of the China National Congress on 10/18). Media reports suggest the Fed chair frontrunners are Warsh and Powell followed by Yellen and Cohn.
China - the National Congress of the Communist Party of China starts Oct 18.
China Q3 GDP and Sept retail sales, IP, and FAI (Wed night/Thurs morning) – Thurs morning 10/19.
EU leaders hold summit in Brussels. Oct 19-20. Brussels.
Japan – the country will hold snap elections on Sun 10/22.
Flash PMIs for Oct – Tues 10/24
ECB meeting/press conf. Thurs Oct 26. The ECB is expected to provide guidance on LSAP tapering at this meeting (St assumes LSAP drops from EU60B now to EU40B w/6 month extension).
Fed meeting – decision Wed 11/1 (no press conf. or supplemental).
FB/TWTR testifying before Senate on Russia and the election – Wed 11/1.
BOE decision – Thurs 11/2. The BOE is expected to hike rates at this meeting.
Trump trip to China – he is scheduled to visit China in November.
GE – the co will likely hold an analyst meeting 11/13 at which it will provide a refresh of its long-term financial guidance.
US inflation – the Oct CPI will hit on Wed 11/15.
Fed meeting minutes (from the 11/1 meeting) – Wed 11/22.
Flash PMIs for Nov. Fri 11/24.
OPEC meeting – the next formal OPEC leaders meeting is Nov 30 (a decision on extending the production agreement beyond Mar ’18 could be reached at this gathering).
US gov’t funding/debt ceiling – current legislation funds the gov’t and suspends the debt ceiling until 12/8 (the debt ceiling is unlikely to become binding again until “well into” 2018).
Alabama special Senate election – Tues 12/12.
Fed meeting – decision Wed Dec 13. There will be a press conf. and supplemental. The Fed is expected to hike rates at this meeting.
My company’s carbon footprint is the size of a small country. We need to act. Washington Post. http://wapo.st/2fWXc8V
The single greatest thing Republicans need right now – Washington Post http://wapo.st/2wBTG76
1949: The Year That Set the Course of Chinese-American Relations – NYT http://nyti.ms/2z2hGSv M&A/Strategic Actions
Brooklyn Nets – multiple suitors are in talks to buy a 49% stake in the NBA deal. Mikhail Prokhorov is seeking a valuation of >$2B for the entire team. NY Post. http://nyp.st/2y3KFY0 o Brooklyn Nets – BABA denied that its vice chairman, Joseph Tsai, was in talks to buy a stake in the Nets – Reuters http://reut.rs/2yuCBRa
GIMO – Elliot’s takeover talks w/the company have ground to a halt according to Reuters over price disagreements – Reuters http://reut.rs/2fNCepo
HON - according to the WSJ, HON is pursuing an acquisition of Evoqua Water Tech in a deal that could be worth $3B (http://on.wsj.com/2yseCSp).
HPQ, Samsung – China said it will approve HPQ’s purchase of Samsung’s printer business – Reuters http://reut.rs/2y06khP
JWN buyout not completely dead – the Nordstrom family is exploring a new deal structure w/Leonard Green that would involve less debt. The family is trying to raise more equity (although it isn’t clear where the money will come from). WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/2ggTvbh
PENN, PNK - the WSJ reported (during trading on Thurs http://on.wsj.com/2xjE24p) on merger talks between PENN and PNK (the firms have been unable to agree to terms but PENN is still interested in buying PNK).
Retailers helped through bankruptcy process – Reuters notes that many retailers are obtaining help during the bankruptcy process w/many being allowed to stay in business w/their store bases largely intact – Reuters http://reut.rs/2y3NcAN
SNCR - On October 4, 2017, SNCR and Siris determined to restart discussions regarding a potential transaction. Specifically, Siris is offering to buy Intralinks for $915MM cash, invest $185MM for a convert worth ~20% of SNCR’s common shares, and cancel the ~6MM SNCR common shares it now owns.
SUM, ASHG – SUM has made a rival bid for ASHG as it looks to scuttle the existing Ash Grove-CRH PLC transaction. Ash Grove’s board said the offer could result in a superior proposal and that it would engage in talks with the third party. Bloomberg.
Unilever – the co is seeking PE bids for its spreads business by 10/19; a sale could be worth $8B – Reuters http://reut.rs/2fNDYPe
Full catalyst list
Fri Oct 6 – German factory orders for Aug. 2amET.
Fri Oct 6 – US jobs report for Sept. 8:30amET.
Fri Oct 6 – US wholesale inventories/trade sales for Aug. 10amET.
Fri Oct 6 – US consumer credit for Aug. 3pmET.
Fri Oct 6 – Fed speakers: Bostic, Kaplan, Bullard
Sat Oct 7 – China FX reserves for Sept (Fri night/Sat morning)
Mon Oct 9 – China Caixin services PMI for Sept (Sun night/Mon morning)
Mon Oct 9 – German industrial production for Aug. 2amET.
Mon Oct 9 – earnings after the European close: LVMH.
Mon Oct 9 – Columbus Day holiday in the US (equities will be open while fixed income is closed).
Tues Oct 10 – German trade balance for Aug. 2amET.
Tues Oct 10 – analyst meetings: TECD, Santander, WDAY, WMT
Tues Oct 10 – PG shareholder meeting
Tues Oct 10 – earnings after the close: CUDA
Wed Oct 11 – US JOLTs report for Aug. 10amET.
Wed Oct 11 – Fed minutes from the Sept 20 meeting (2pmET).
Wed Oct 11 – analyst meetings: KR
Wed Oct 11 – earnings before the open: BLK, DAL, FAST, OZRK.
Thurs Oct 12 – Eurozone industrial production for Aug. 5amET.
Thurs Oct 12 – US PPI for Sept. 8:30amET.
Thurs Oct 12 – analyst meetings: BOX, HPQ, LSCC, WDC.
Thurs Oct 12 – earnings before the open: C, DPZ, JPM, LNN, Sky PLC, Tata Consultancy.
Thurs Oct 12 – earnings after the close: EXFO
Fri Oct 13 – China imports/exports for Sept (Thurs night/Fri morning)
Fri Oct 13 – US CPI for Sept. 8:30amET.
Fri Oct 13 – US retail sales for Sept. 8:30amET.
Fri Oct 13 – US Michigan Sentiment for Oct. 10amET.
Fri Oct 13 – US business inventories for Aug. 10amET.
Fri Oct 13 – analyst meetings: SAFM
Fri Oct 13 – earnings before the open: BAC, DRFG, FHN, FRC, JBHT, Man Group, PNC, WFC.
Mon Oct 16 – China CPI/PPI for Sept (Sun night/Mon morning)
Mon Oct 16 – Eurozone trade balance for Aug. 5amET.
Mon Oct 16 – earnings before the open: SCHW
Mon Oct 16 – earnings after the close: BRO, IEX, NFLX, Rio Tinto
Tues Oct 17 – Eurozone Sept auto registrations. 2amET.
Tues Oct 17 – German ZEW survey results for Oct. 5amET.
Tues Oct 17 – US import prices for Sept. 8:30amET.
Tues Oct 17 – US industrial production for Sept. 9:15amET.
Tues Oct 17 – US NAHB housing index for Oct. 10amET.
Tues Oct 17 – earnings before the open: BMI, CMA, CSX, GS, GWW, HOG, JNJ, MS, Pearson, PLD, Remy Cointreau, UNH
Tues Oct 17 – earnings after the close: ADTN, BHP, CP, CREE, IBM, LRCX, NAVI.
Wed Oct 18 – US housing starts for Sept. 8:30amET.
Wed Oct 18 – US building permits fro Sept. 8:30amET.
Wed Oct 18 – US Beige Book. 2pmET.
Wed Oct 18 – earnings before the open: ABT, Akzo Nobel, MTB, NTRS, USB
Wed Oct 18 – earnings after the close: AA, AXP, BHE, CCI, CCK, EBAY, LLNW, SLG, TCBI
Thurs Oct 19 – China Q3 GDP and Sept retail sales, IP, and FAI (Wed night/Thurs morning)
Tues Oct 24 – earnings after the close: AKAM, AMP, CMG, COF, DFS, ESRX, IRBT, T, TSS, TXN.
Wed Oct 25 – US durable goods for Sept. 8:30amET.
Wed Oct 25 – US FHFA home price index for Aug. 9amET.
Wed Oct 25 – US new home sales for Sept. 10amET.
Wed Oct 25 – earnings before the open: ALK, ALLY, ANTM, Antofagasta, AOS, BA, BAX, Dassault Systemes, DPS, FCX, FLIR, Fresnillo, HBAN, Heineken, IP, IR, KO, LEA, LH, Lloyds Banking Group, NDAQ, NSC, NYCB, Peugeot, TMO, TUP, V, WBA, WEC.
Wed Oct 25 – earnings after the close: ABX, ACGL, AFL, AMGN, CLGX, DLR, FFIV, FTI, KIM, LSTR, NOW, ORLY, PKG, PLXS, RJF, TSCO, UNM, VAR, XLNX.
Thurs Oct 26 – US wholesale inventories for Sept. 8:30amET.
Thurs Oct 26 – US advance goods trade balance for Sept. 8:30amET.
Thurs Oct 26 – US pending home sales for Sept. 10amET.
Thurs Oct 26 – earnings before the open: Aixtron, ALLE, ALV, Anheuser Busch, APD, Bayer, BMY, BSX, BWA, CCMP, CELG, CHTR, CMCSA, CME, Deutsche Bank, ENTG, EQT, F, HLT, MMC, NEM, Nokia, ODFL, Santander, Schneider Electric, UNP, UPS, WM, XEL.
Thurs Oct 26 – earnings after the close: AIV, ATEN, CB, CDNS, EXPE, FLEX, FTNT, GILD, GOOG, HIG, INTC, LPLA, MSFT, NATI, PFG, SYK, VDSI, VRSN.
Fri Oct 27 – China Sept industrial profits (Thurs night/Fri morning).
Fri Oct 27 – US Q3 GDP, personal consumption, and core PCE for Q3. 8:30amET.
Fri Oct 27 – US Michigan Confidence numbers for Oct. 10amET.
Fri Oct 27 – earnings before the open: B, MRK, PSX, SC, TRU, Volkswagen, WY, XOM.
Mon Oct 30 – US personal income/spending and PCE for Sept. 8:30amET.
Mon Oct 30 – US Dallas Fed index for Oct. 10:30amET.
Mon Oct 30 – analyst meetings: CSX
Mon Oct 30 – earnings before the open: HSBC
Mon Oct 30 – earnings after the close: AVB, CGNX, RE, RTEC, VNO
Tues Oct 31 – US Employment Cost Index for Q3. 8:30amET.
Tues Oct 31 – US Case-Shiller home price index for Aug. 9amET.
Tues Oct 31 – US Chicago PMI for Oct. 9:45amET.
Tues Oct 31 – US Conference Board Sentiment readings for Oct. 10amET.
Tues Oct 31 – earnings before the open: ADM, AET, Airbus, AMT, Barclays, BNP, CMI, ECL, GGP, K, MA, OSK, PFE, XYL.
Tues Oct 31 – earnings after the close: APC, CHRW, CXO, WFT, X
Wed Nov 1 – US ADP jobs report for Oct. 8:15amET.
Wed Nov 1 – US Markit Manufacturing PMI for Oct. 9:45amET.
Wed Nov 1 – US Manufacturing ISM for Oct. 10amET.
Wed Nov 1 – US construction spending report for Sept. 10amET.
Wed Nov 1 – US auto sales for Oct.
Wed Nov 1 – FOMC meeting decision. 2pmET.
Wed Nov 1 – earnings before the open: AGN, APO, CLX, EL, GRMN, HFC, Novo Nordisk, ORBK, Standard Chartered, TAP, TRI.
Wed Nov 1 – earnings after the close: ALL, BHF, BXP, CAVM, CSGS, FB, LNC, MANT, MET, MUSA, OXY, PRU, QCOM, ULTI, XPO.
Thurs Nov 2 – US nonfarm productivity and unit labor costs for Q3. 8:30amET.
Thurs Nov 2 – earnings before the open: ADP, AN, BCE, CI, Credit Suisse, DISCA, H, ICE, Royal Dutch Shell, Sanofi, Swiss Re, WRK.
Thurs Nov 2 – earnings after the close: AAPL, AIG, CBS, CRUS, FLR, HLF, RMAX, SBUX, UNIT.
Fri Nov 3 – US jobs report for Oct. 8:30amET.
Fri Nov 3 – US trade balance for Sept. 8:30amET.
Fri Nov 3 – US factory orders and durable goods orders for Sept. 10amET.
Fri Nov 3 – US non-manufacturing ISM for Oct. 10amET.
Tues Nov 7 – US JOLTs jobs report for Sept. 10amET.
Tues Nov 7 – US consumer credit for Sept. 3pmET.
Thurs Nov 9 – US wholesale trade sales/inventories for Sept. 10amET.
Fri Nov 10 – US Michigan Confidence preliminary numbers for Nov. 10amET.
Tues Nov 14 – US PPI for Oct. 8:30amET.
Wed Nov 15 – US CPI for Oct. 8:30amET.
Wed Nov 15 – US Empire Manufacturing for Nov. 8:30amET.
Wed Nov 15 – US retail sales for Oct. 8:30amET.
Wed Nov 15 – US business inventories for Sept. 10amET.
Thurs Nov 16 – US import prices for Oct. 8:30amET.
Thurs Nov 16 – US industrial production for Oct. 9:15amET.
Thurs Nov 16 – US NAHB housing index for Nov. 10amET.
Fri Nov 17 – US housing starts and building permits for Oct. 8:30amET.
Mon Nov 20 – US Leading Index for Oct. 10amET.
Tues Nov 21 – US existing home sales for Oct. 10amET.
Wed Nov 22 – US durable goods for Oct. 8:30amET.
Wed Nov 22 – US final Michigan Confidence numbers for Nov. 10amET.
Wed Nov 22 – FOMC 11/1 meeting minutes. 2pmET.
Fri Nov 24 – US flash PMIs for Nov. 9:45amET.
J.P. Morgan Market Intelligence is a product of the Institutional Equities Sales and Trading desk of J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and the intellectual property thereof. It is not a product of the Research Department and is intended for distribution to institutional and professional customers only and is not intended for retail customer use. It may not be reproduced, redistributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, without J.P. Morgan’s consent. Any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
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