Revenue for January up nearly 8% at Atlantic City Casinos. The rise is driven partly by online gambling revenue, which is now 9% of all Casino revenue and rising.
What's up dingleberry danglers! It's ya boy, Agent00Funk, here to welcome you back to another edition of the TendieDome! That's right, its time for another wall of text for your literary entertainment, definitely not for your financial advice. By popular request, I even figured out how to add pictures. Keanu help us. If you're as illiterate as a Mississippi high school drop-out, go ahead and skip to the bottom for the TL;DR and my positions. I don't wanna hear no bitching about your lack of attention span, alright, because I will call you a slack-jawed cousin-fucker. Bet. So staple your eye shades open, Clockwork Orange style, and get ready to be blown away by how one of America's worst companies is gonna make you tendies. Those of you that have been following my DDs know that I'm not about rocket ships, I'm not gonna send you to the moon or Mars (but Uranus is in the cards). No, no, no, my sweet little summer autists, my plays are are all about steady accumulation of tendies. The goal? Acquire enough tendies so you can buy a first class ticket on whatever rocket a superior autist says is launching. Most of my plays are LONG term HOLDs, today's is a slight exception as we're looking for a Q3 or Q4 pay out. Maybe one day I'll grace you with my casino plays, but before I do that, we gotta make sure you're bringing enough dough to the paste-eating competition. And I sure as shit don't want y'all dick whistlers to blame me when the casino play doesn't pan out, so we're sticking with safe territory for now. Alright, now that I've masturbated enough and have that post-nut clarity to tell you why you should be putting money in CMCSA. That's right you little chode yodlers, muthafucking Comcast. Lots of you are probably already their customer, and have evolved to instantly wanna shit on Comcast. I don't blame you, they seriously suck, bunch of fucking assholes. But you know what sucky fucky assholes do? Make stacks on stacks on stacks. They're fucking you, AND taking your money. These guys have prostitution really figured out....you don't even know that you their ho. So, let's channel our inner Charlie, and do some Pepe Silivia deep dive due diligence. That's right, it's not just a DD like your wife's bra, we're going for the DDDD! This is us rn. Would you take financial advice from this guy? So, CMCSA....where do even start? The highway-robbery pricing (tendies)? The understaffed and overworked employees (tendies)? The geographical monopolies they hold? (tendies). The reliance on dumbfuck Boomers as a customer base (I wanna hear the choir sing it with me now:...tendies)? No, no, no....you may be retarded, but you know when you're getting fucked, and you know you pay for getting fucked anyway, just like everyone else (tendies). fr fr CMCSA basically makes money in two ways: 1.) fucking you. 2.) fucking others. But wait! There's more! They have even more ways of taking money from you and everybody else, and if your goldfish attention span can handle it, you'll see what I'm talking about. Oh and charts. I do have charts. Fuck, me and Billie Eyelash have been spending so much time in the Crayon Room together, those charts have so many colors, most of them green. Before I bust out these fucking rainbow crayons, let's cover some ground facts. For the Europoors among us, you may be shocked to find out that most Americans have NO CHOICE in who their ISP is. I know, cue the Sarah McLachlan and charity pitch, it's fucking pathetic. Free markets, my ass. But you know what that means? Tendies. That's right, Comcast has the most little fiefdoms of all the ISPs in the land. Only $T can compete, but here's the kicker: people have been ditching $T for CMCSA. Why? Because $T offers DSL in a gigabit world, that's locked inside because of a pandemic, re-discovering what made cyber sex so awkward over AIM, but now with cameras! (All the real Gs were around for that A/S/L/ convo, shit was Catfish City). So, while all you fuckwads are going to work in your Superman pajamas on Zoom, more people signed up for that sweet, sweet broadband., so they too could go to work in their Cookie Monster pajamas. (Mine are camouflaged, my co-workers don't even know I'm there, they just see square burger patties getting flipped on the griddle and are like "woooooooooooooaaah") I know you bell-end ringers don't read, but you can read a little more about subscriber increases here: (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/comcast-cmcsa-q4-2020-earnings.html) Did you notice that link? CNBC? Reputable shit, right? I know some of you motherfuckers pay CMCSA like $200/month just to watch that shit, along with 400 other channels of garbage. That's right Europoors, CMCSA isn't just an ISP with a monopoly, it's a cable TV provider with a monopoly (tendies). And you know what else? They own CNBC. Fuck, they own ALL of NBC. Now, I know, some of you more erudite ballsack gargglers already know this, but let's let the retards catch up. Because, guess what you molasses racers, CMCSA also owns Universal Studios. For the nerds in the front row, shut the fuck up, we already know you're smart. Are you seeing this shit? Like, seriously, are you piecing this shit together? CMCSA owns the pipes, CMCSA owns the shit in them, large swatches of America have no choice except CMCSA, and more people need those shitty ass pipes, because it's way fucking better than the old ass copper $T is selling. "Alright," you say, "CMCSA would've been a good pandemic play, what's the bull case looking forward?" Well tug my dick and call me Rick, that's why we're here. I can already tell this is going become a damn book of retardation, so I'm going to add some chapters. TV Subscriptions. We've got the finest stock art, just for you This is the weakest part of CMCSA, everyone is cutting the cord, they're sticking to streaming, but if you check that link above, you'll see that they actually managed to add over 400k new subscribers. Sure, some of that can be attributed to people being bored as fuck at home during the pandemic and figuring they'll get 400 channels of dog vomit to help ease their soul-crushing ennui. There aren't a lot of reasons to expect these growth figures to continue, except one, which I will get to in a bit, but I do think they'll be a bit sticky. Why? Fucking Boomers man. Boomers have this very strange addiction to channel surfing. I don't get it. They just sit there and flip through 400 channels at 10 channels/second for hours on hours on hours. They aren't even watching anything, just surfing. Don't believe me? Go ask a Boomer near you how much time they spend channel surfing and why they won't give it up. They love complaining about it too: "all these fucking channels, and nothing to watch." If you point out that they could just STREAM something they want to watch, they just go right back to surfing, because they don't actually know what they want to watch. TV may be going the way of the dinosaur, but there are still lots of dinosaurs surfing channels for now, hell, they even picked up more. How? Is it all just bored people signing up for TV during the pandemic? Maybe, but I've got another theory about geography! Internet Subscriptions Yup. So, even though people may be cutting the cord, they can't do that without internet, and...well....yeah, CMCSA may see declines from TV subscriptions, but definitely not internet subscriptions, not this year anyway. Again, I refer to the earnings report to show you jello heads the subscription numbers. I'm not going to belabor this point much, surely you know people need broadband, and CMCSA is the only game in town in many places. Geographic Monopolies in Growth Markets Awwww yiiissss gimme Park Place If you've been reading along thus far, congratulations, you'll remember that we talked about the little fiefdom monopolies these guys have across the country. So, where are those fiefdoms located? Right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communities_served_by_Comcast Now, I won't bust out the charts for population growth in all of these, because there is a fuck ton, but even just looking at Alabama (Roll Tide), you see that 80% of their markets in that state are growth markets, and only 1 is showing population decline.... and they're only in 6 markets there! Now, they don't hold 80% of growth markets in every state, but they hold a lot. This means that as these cities attract more people and grow, those poor saps will have no choice but to sign up for CMCSA if they want TV and/or internet. Yes, goons and goblins, CMCSA doesn't just have a captive audience, it has a captive audience in places where the audience is growing. Do I really need to spell out how these equates to tendies? Want to know something even better? Biden's infrastructure plan includes heaps of money for increasing broadband access to underserved and rural communities, communities that will then become part of CMCSA's growing fiefdoms. Streaming Trying to catch my shows fresh from the stream with my bare hands CMCSA has also launched its own streaming service, Peacock, and if you look at the CNBC link, you can see subscriber numbers for that as well. Seeing the writing on the wall, CMCSA has gotten in on making money from cord-cutters. Again, CMCSA owns the entire NBC and Universal Studios catalog, but it really doesn't matter because just like a bunch of people signed up for Disney+ just to watch The Mandalorian, a bunch of people have and will sign up for Peacock just to watch The Office. And yeah, it fucking sucks that before you could have Hulu and Netflix and not need any more streaming services, that they are Balkanizing the streaming space just like they did with cable, and now you need like 20 different apps, but go look at the Universal/NBC catalog and tell me that you wouldn't pay $5/month for access to it if you couldn't get it anywhere else. I mean shit. WWE is exclusive to Peacock...do I need to say more? Do you smell-l-l-l-l-l what The Funk is cooking? Theme Parks and the Recovery Who else re-installing RCT2? Here's a kick in the pants that you didn't expect. Universal studios. That's right, these motherfuckers got their own janky-ass wannabe Disney World. Hell, if anyone ever does open a Jurassic Park, it'll be CMCSA because they've got the rights to it and know how to run a theme park. How much do they add? About $6 billion/year (pre 2020). How much did they make in 2020? $1.8 billion. There's $4 billion set to come back into the pot. But wait, there's more! They're going to open their largest park ever this year, been building it since 2016, and the opening has been confirmed despite the Rona. Where? In Beijing, so you know the place is gonna be huge and full. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Studios_Beijing So as the vaccine gets out there, the world returns to "normal" and people go spend absurd amounts of money to slide across bits of metal, not only will missing revenue return, but CMCSA is ready to make the pot bigger. When is it opening? May. This is important because we're not looking for a pay-out until after the park has opened. If you feel more retarded after having read this far, imagine how retarded I am for having written all that linguistic linguini. So, now that we know what the bull case for CMCSA is, let's bust out those crayons and look at some charts to get the full confirmation-bias effect and look at possible entry and exit points. CRAYON ROOM TIME! I don't know if this will be mo bigga when you fumble fucks look at it, I'm too retarded to figure out formatting. I really don't know fuck about shit when it comes to numbers, but I do know the lines look pretty. So, let's run this down real fast. This is a weekly chart going back to 2018. I wanted to go that far back to show you two things. 1.) CMCSA recovered from a dip in 2018 much like it has from the COVID dip, and is on pace to match or exceed it's growth average since 2018. 2.) Annual dividend increases of around 10%. Looking at the chart, there is no reason not to expect the same announcement towards the end of the year, and in fact the next quarterly dividend has already received the increase. I've got a few other lines in there, but what I want to point out is how much the price rises above the moving price average, weather measured as a simple moving price average or within Bollinger Bands. Dips below the average tend to recover and be above the average again within 2-3 weeks. Crayons are awesome. I should invest in Crayola. Now let's look a little at demand. Again, this is a weekly chart, but this time we're mostly going to be focusing on the right side of the chart. The top chart is a Stochastic Full measurement, the two horizontal blue lines represent oversold (top) and overbought (bottom). Generally speaking, if a stock is oversold, the price goes down, people buy, and the price goes up, leading to a position of it being overbought where people sell for profit, price goes down, and rinse and repeat. The squiggly lines are the two measurements of where the stock is in relation to being oversold or overbought. So what is it showing us? That the stock was recently oversold, and is heading towards being overbought. Best time to get in would've been 2 weeks ago, but try posting a DD on WSB back then that wasn't about the holy trinity cult. So what does this mean? Well, buying now could lead to a little rise followed by a little dip as it fluctuates between oversold and overbought. The second graphs is the MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) this chart essentially measures sentiment, if it's up, it's bullish, if it's down, its bearish. I know some of you eggheads will correct me with finer points, but I don't have time to write a textbook that I'm incapable of understanding. As you can see, it has leveled off, which makes me believe it will dip, this also corresponds to it's movements in the Stochastic measurements. So don't buy at open, watch it for a bit, it might dip. The third graph...I have no fucking clue y'all. It had the word "projection" in it, and the line is pointing up, and that was good enough for me. Timing and Prices If you can get in for under $50, do it. I'm not sure if it will dip that low again soon, but it's within possibility. Calls aren't terribly priced, they're not the value they were 2 weeks ago when I first wanted to write this, but they're still a good value, especially for July and beyond, which is the timeframe we're looking at for an exit. Or not. I mean, you could sit on this shit forever and not really have to worry, which is another thing I like about it. But I have calls for July and October and may even pick up the 2022 LEAPs. We're looking for two events to provide a nice pop for our exits; the new park opening and Q3 earnings report that should include initial earnings from the parks, both new and re-opened. We want to see if the customers are going back to the parks, and returning that missing money into the pot, and we want to see how growth of broadband customers has increased. But again, don't sweat too much about timing and prices, this thing just keeps marching upwards. Positions CMCSA Shares CMCSA 16 July $50c CMCSA 15 Oct $52.5c Tl;dr CMCSA. No rockets, but good value. 7/10 Would buy again. DISCLAIMER: I don't know what I'm doing, you listen to me at your own peril, please leave me alone SEC.
I need some assistance. I have the dataset for my city's property tax rolls and am starting to build a proposal for our own Land Value Tax (LVT), but I need ideas on how to slice the data so I can address the majority of the questions out of the gate. Methodology: Take the current year's property tax rate (2.6167%) and apply that to every listed property in the city. Take the total, theoretical income the city makes from this and divide it by the total assessed land of the city to calculate the LVT rate (17.23421%) and apply that to every parcel of land in the city, ignoring the improvements on the land. Thus keeping the proposal revenue neutral. The data wasn't the easiest to break down or translate across, so shout out to u/ptunnel for getting me the cross tables I needed as well as an RStudio tutorial.
How would you like to see the data?
What I have so far by dollars and percentage:
Top 5 winners and losers
median gain (about $500 a house in your pocket, or 25% savings), and quintiles (50% of the people will see a loss of $500 to a savings of $1,200)
Top winners by % are data errors with structures built on no land, or whose land is exempt. These are town houses reserved for people with disabilities and assisted living, church sponsored businesses (schools, soup kitchens and foster care), non-profit hospitals. I'm not upset having these businesses paying nothing in property taxes. The 5 losers by $ are
What have we learned? Looking at the Quartiles all the money is being moved about on the high value land that isn't residential. This means the average homeowner or single-family/duplex renter will see minimal change. Especially since some of these properties saw a 70% increase in their tax bill from 2019 with no warning. Because of contracts already in place, immediately moving over to pure LVT will be difficult because Milwaukee has given tax deals to developers to ignore improvements in order to boost construction. This could potentially be a breach of contract. Full disclosure: I have two lots in this city, a home I live in and a vacant lot next to it that is our side yard. The changes to my tax bill would be a savings of $1,400 (33%) for the house and a loss of $2,700 (559%) for the empty lot, totaling me losing $1,300, or a 27% increase in my property taxes.
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.
Albeit a week late, I want to share my 2021 portfolio for documentation purposes and for whoever is interested. I aimed to balance risk in this portfolio with some growth names and legacy plays. Down to brass tacks, I am putting my money in the highest quality companies (in my view) across a diverse set of industries I find attractive. Some of these names are overvalued in the short term. However, I have realized I am not in the business of beating Wall Street’s pricing, but would rather hold high-quality companies that I believe will grow faster that the market in the long term. In other words, I am totally fine paying a short-term premium for growth and quality. Below is a summary of the portfolio and big picture reasoning behind each investment. I'm definitely open to any feedback.
Company
Ticker
Entry Price
Exposure
ARK Genomic Revolution ETF
ARKG
$93.26
6.60%
CrowdStrike
CRWD
$211.82
11.78%
Disney
DIS
$181.18
10.53%
Enphase Energy
ENPH
$175.47
7.98%
Evolution Gaming Group
EVVTY
$101.02
12.77%
Facebook
FB
$273.16
11.05%
Redfin
RDFN
$68.63
10.41%
Teladoc
TDOC
$199.96
9.60%
Sea Ltd
SE
$199.05
14.09%
Waste Connections
WCN
$102.57
5.19%
ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (BATS: ARKG) - Invests in companies advancing genomics. The companies held in ARKG may develop, produce or enable: CRISPR, Targeted Therapeutics, Bioinformatics, Molecular Diagnostics, Stem Cells, Agricultural Biology.
Innovative industry. Since 2003 the cost to sequence a human genome has dropped from nearly $3bn to less than $1,000. ARK believes that as costs continue to drop, genomic sequencing will become a standard of care in oncology. It will introduce more science into healthcare decision making, enable personalized medicine, and accelerate drug discovery. ARK estimates that genomic sequencing revenues will grow 43% at an annual rate, from $3.5bn last year to $21bn in 2024.
Cathie Wood. She’s a beast stock picker. Out of all the ETFs she runs, her closest competitor trailed by 60%. Her worst ETF still doubled investors' money. Her strategy is to make investments into companies that she considers incredibly transformational and she has seen success doing it.
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) - Cybersecurity technology company that provides endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyber attack response services.
Best in class technology. Remember about a week ago a bunch of Russian hackers breached SolarWinds? The same hackers also tried to hack CrowdSrike at the same time but were unsuccessful. I’ve wandered on to a bunch of cybersecurity forums, and the general consensus is CrowdStrike has developed the best cybersecurity solution by miles. CRWD is the undisputed leader in cybersecurity.
“Pick-and-shovel” investment into the world’s increasing digitization. Even in the absence of COVID, cybersecurity remains a key component of the world’s increasing digitization as cyberthreats have been an ongoing issue from the onset of the internet. In the last decade we have seen a bunch of hacks where companies have exposed sensitive customer information. It seems companies are just starting to realize the importance of cybersecurity.
Disney (NYSE: DIS) - Worldwide entertainment company that you all are probably familiar with.
Reopening trade. In 2019, parks generated 45% of total operating income for DIS. Full reopening and attendance in parks will be slow, but certainly benefit DIS when it happens. The company has been executing on several other segments in the meantime (i.e. streaming). It has proved competitive, increasing the margin of safety if parks take longer to reopen.
Fast-growing streaming division. DIS has proved agile as it successfully launched a streaming service, Disney+, that has already gained 86mn+ subscribers which was the company’s original 5 year target. This is promising as it shows management can adapt to rapidly changing technology trends.
Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH) - Designs and manufactures software-driven home energy solutions that span solar generation, home energy storage and web-based monitoring and control.
Shift to clean energy; ENPH emerging as market leader. Going into 2021, sentiments towards solar have been at an all time high. This trend is expected to continue, especially after the Georgia run-off results. Solar firms are expected to benefit from extended tax incentives on both the consumer and producer ends.
Technological advantage. ENPH has developed the industry leading solution and is rapidly taking market share from its primary competitor, SolarEdge. Pricing reflects this, but it's expected to continue. Among key competitors, Enphase has been one of the lowest cost producers. Its low-cost structure is a major contributing factor to its improving margins.
Evolution Gaming Group (OTC: EVVTY) - Swedish company that develops, produces, markets and licenses integrated B2B live casino solutions for gaming operators.
Early mover advantage. Evolution’s lack of competition enables it to rapidly grow in new markets and create a loyal customer base, with high switching costs. The company has effectively grown EBITA margins from 41.6% in 1Q18 to 64.8% in 3Q20. Margin expansion is expected to continue.
Massive untapped markets. Europe is estimated to be around $2.5bn (EVVTY has 50% market share), Asian market is ~15x the size of Europe (150% YoY growth for EVVTY in Asia). North America’s market is ~$210mn, a 42% increase YoY, with NJ and PA the only states currently operating (NY looks promising). Management thinks the US will be the largest in the long-term.
Undetected from Wall Street. Evolution has almost no analyst coverage in the US and very minimal coverage in Europe, presenting opportunity for additional growth as institutional money managers recognize this opportunity and draw attention to the stock. Additionally, Evolution has a founder-led management team that is highly aligned with shareholders (mgmt owns over 30% of the stock).
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) - Enables people to connect through devices. It’s products include Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus.
Zuck. It’s not a question of who is the next Jobs/Bezos/Gates/Zuck, because Zuck is super young. He has a history of being able to execute: IG acquisition / transition from desktop to mobile / denying multiple acquisition opportunities in his twenties.
Undervalued. FB is the cheapest among the FAANG stocks, yet has some of the highest growth rates. This is mainly because of its continuous political scandals. With Trump out of office, I think FB has a chance to stay out of trouble and start to realize higher multiples. The antitrust lawsuit is not a threat imo, it is actually an opportunity. If the govt forces FB to break up, we would get shares in the spin-offs, which would be valued at a higher multiple than FB. For example, if Instagram spun off from FB and traded at the same multiple as SNAP, Instagram’s market cap would be larger than FB’s.
Digitization of Real Estate (i.e. “iBuying”). Technology in RE is moving from being informational to transactional. Redfin’s iBuying service is dubbed “RedfinNow.” The service basically buys homes from sellers looking for a quick and convenient sale (close deals within 10-30 days). This segment isn’t profitable yet as it is just getting started, but promising as the management adapts to technology trends.
Inter-US Migration and housing outlook. People are moving out of the cities because of COVID / trying to avoid taxes / etc. which increases demand for Redfin’s services. With interest rates extremely low (and no expectation for them to increase), homebuying demand should continue to grow.
RDFN most attractively valued compared to Z and OPEN, with the most upside potential given its market cap ~$7bn. Some are predicting RDFN might start offering rental services as well. RDFN has the best LT margin potential.
Teladoc Health (NYSE: TDOC) - Provides virtual healthcare services on a B2B basis to its clients and provides services to consumers directly and through channel partners.
Competitive positioning in industry ripe for disruption. Healthcare is a huge market yet to be significantly disrupted. COVID has accelerated this disruption. Providers who were once opposed to telemedicine now realize its benefits and several regulatory changes are promising for telemedicines growth potential. Medicare and other government-sponsored coverage is expected to include telemedicine benefits, increasing TDOC’s TAM.
Livongo acquisition. From the consumer POV, this will increase access to healthcare at a lower cost. Teladoc will have access to a larger amount of data it can interpret to refine its services and monetization strategies.
Sea Ltd (NYSE: SE) - Digital entertainment, electronic commerce, and digital financial services. The Company operates three business segments: Garena, Shopee, and SeaMonkey. The Company’s digital entertainment business, Garena, is a global game developer and publisher with a presence in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Latin America. Garena provides access to mobile and personal computer online games. Shopee provides users with a shopping environment that is supported by integrated payment, logistics, fulfillment, and other value-added services. SeaMonkey business is a digital financial services provider. SeaMonkey offers e-wallet services, payment processing, credit related digital financial offerings, and other financial products.
Diversified consumer internet company with market-leading position. Sea caters to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, providing its online gaming, e-commerce, and payment platforms. Shopee has overtaken competitors, it is widening its market share lead. ESports is a rapidly growing market (15.7% YoY to $1.1bn in 2020) and Sea is outpacing market growth.
Pay for quality. The best companies keep going up for years in a row, and I think Sea is in the early stages of being classified as such a company. It’s worth $100bn but has effectively proved its ability to identify opportunities and expand business lines.
Still early stages of developing its consumer banking business, so we get the security of a bigger, established company with upside for an additional, lucrative business line such as fintech.
Waste Connections Inc. (NYSE: WCN) - Waste services company that provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services.
Recession resilient; re-opening trade. The waste management industry is recession resilient, it will always be around.
Non-hazardous waste collection. With a progressive government likely to push climate initiatives, recycling and non-hazardous waste collection are likely to benefit on the back end.
WCN has a large moat; there isn’t much of a competitive threat the way the industry operates. Management’s strategy is to generally only spend what FCF is available. This enables the company to make acquisitions while handling its debt load. Great for stable growth.
P.S. I have two other accounts - one with about 40 growth stocks and another with about 10 big names / ETFs. However, this portfolio has the largest allocation for 2021. My first time trying a more concentrated approach.
A state agency that works toward equality for women and girls issued a blistering report Monday outlining the ills associated with casinos, particularly as they relate to the sex trade...“Casinos bring more than just revenue. They bring a bachelor party culture,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women...
Nationally, a person being sex trafficked in a hotel/resort setting is forced, coerced, or intimidated to perform sex acts on an average of 5 to 10 customers per day. (p. 2) Sex trafficking is distinct from prostitution: sex trafficking is the means, prostitution, pornography and stripping are the ends. Both are relatively new problems in Hawaiʻi that became systematic after Western contact. (p. 2) According to law enforcement (Spotlight) data compiled by The Avery Center, there (is an estimate of) a total 18,375 sex trafficking victims in Honolulu...(that's a total of)...23,887,812 commercial sex acts per year performed by sex trafficking victims in Honolulu. (p. 3)
When police charged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with soliciting prostitution, the press said the police rescued sex slaves. "They were women who were from China, who were forced into sex slavery," said Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. We're told this happens all the time. It's bunk, says Reason Associate Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown. In the Robert Kraft case, she points out, "They had all these big announcements at first saying they had busted up an international sex trafficking ring, implying these women weren't allowed to leave.” But now prosecutors acknowledge that there was no trafficking. The women were willing sex workers... Politicians tell us that thousands of children are forced into the sex trade. "Three-hundred thousand American children are at risk!" said Rep. Ann Wagner on the floor of Congress… ...celebrities...perpetuate the myth that sex slavery is rampant. "You can go online and buy a child for sex. It's as easy as ordering a pizza," says Amy Schumer. "Thousands of children are raped every day!" says comedian Seth Meyers...
There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein's weapons. In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who study the sex trade have been subjected to the same treatment as the restrained reports of intelligence analysts who studied Iraqi weapons – stripped of caution, stretched to their most alarming possible meaning and tossed into the public domain. There, they have been picked up by the media who have stretched them even further in stories which have then been treated as reliable sources by politicians, who in turn provided quotes for more misleading stories...
President Barack Obama has famously declared that "human trafficking" is "modern-day slavery." He's also said that it "is a crime that can take many forms." The second definition is a good deal more accurate. "Trafficking," in practice, is less a clear-cut crime than a call to moral panic. The vagueness of the definition allows or even encourages governments, organizations, and researchers to claim that there are tens of millions of trafficking victims worldwide on the basis of little more than hyperbolic guesses... According to Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, "trafficking has become a new name for an old problem, which is largely teenage runaways." Young people who run away from abusive situations at home, and who sell sex to survive, are considered trafficking victims by default under many federal and state laws. This, despite the fact that hardly any teen runaways have pimps or traffickers, according to a John Jay College of Criminal Justice study. Most see sex work as the best way to support themselves on the street, given the limited legal and social service options available for children who run away from home. And most, Bass told me, do not travel out of their own town or city, much less out of the country...
Below I have written a high-level summary of SkyFii (ASX:SKF) and the places my research took me after reading an autistic DD here several months ago by u/B0bcat5 I've sourced my findings from writings and research by the team at ARichLife (ARL) and Canaccord Genuity estimates by Owen Humphries. Links to these publicly available documents are at the bottom of this post and if you are interested in low-market cap tech stocks with an established business model and massive potential for growth I suggest you read the articles, particularly because the Canaccord team do a good job of highlighting the risks. WHO ARE THEY? SkyFii sells software that lets a huge variety of businesses understand and monetise customers and foot traffic using data analytics. They provide physical venues with analytics and software to help streamline operations (translation: reduce costs) and improve the visitor experience (translation: drive more sales). WHAT DOES THEIR PRODUCT DO? They can collect this data from multiple sources including public wifi, CCTV or other cameras, people counters, and other IOT or monitoring devices that might be installed around such facilities, and it can function with existing CRMs. This is achieved through three software products and a Services division:IO Connect (Wifi, Security/CCTV Cameras)IO Insight (Real-time customisable data monitoring and report generation)IO Engage (Targeted messaging using inputs from the above modules)IO Labs (an analytic division that helps customers extract more value from their data) Customers can then analyse this data and make marketing or business process improvements to achieve tangible positive outcomes. Precisely how they benefit depends on the nature of the customer obviously, but retail customers can use it to improve store layouts, stadiums and hospitals can use it for crowd flow and management, airports can use it for targeted advertising, crowd traffic and flow, etc, etc. HOW DO THEY MAKE MONEY FROM THIS? Customer base is broad, including shopping centres, stadiums, airports, universities, gyms, smart cities, casinos, cultural centres, retail outlets and hospitals. Customers typically purchase IO Connect and IO Insight, and then where applicable might progress to IO Engage. This turns into Annually Recurring Revenue. Non-recurring revenue is generated through IO Labs services work. According to the article by ARL: "subscriptions range from $50 per month for a small space such as a quick service restaurant up to $15,000 per month for the largest venues such as airports and stadiums. Software contracts are typically signed for three or five years and customer churn has been less than 1% since inception." These typically attract an 85% gross margin. They also generate services revenue as mentioned above by providing that data science analytics. This is a mix of recurring and one-off. Finally there is some non-recurring revenue for hardware installations (wifi, cameras, etc). VALUATION With recurring revenue at $11.5m per annum and a market capitalisation of about $62.4m at $0.205 it's at a reasonable MC/ARR multiple of ~5.4x while carrying $3.4m in cash. Their last quarter was cashflow positive, however, that leaned heavily on a $982k government grant which may or may not be repeatable. Cannacord maintain a price target of $0.30 but I believe significantly more is plausible. Canaccord also highlighted the improved traction in the North American market announced in the most recent briefings, namely six new customers and a 97% retention rate. I've included the three articles I used to make my investment decision, two by the team at ARichLife and one report by Cannacord Genuity. SOURCES 20 FEB 2020: https://arichlife.com.au/skyfii-ltd-asx-skf-a-promising-saas-consulting-hybrid/ 19 JAN 2021: https://canaccordgenuity.bluematrix.com/sellside/EmailDocViewer?encrypt=cb7b9685-e239-4bfa-abf5-766698156a8d&mime=pdf&co=Canaccordgenuity&id=ERS@asx.com.au&source=mail 31 JAN 2021: https://arichlife.com.au/2-software-stocks-with-2-year-tailwinds/
What is the latest news in the stock market? Aphria is merging with Tilray while the stimulus may be agreed on today after the latest developments. Also, the FED starts its 2-day meeting, let’s talk about this and everything happening in the stock market ~Very Long Post~ Hello everyone and Good Morning! So, let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we see a great day for the stock market, the best in December actually, as a one-two punch of stimulus and vaccine data helped the rally, with the broad market SP500 finishing up 1.29%, the Nasdaq Composite 1.25% and the Dow Industrial 1.13%. We also saw the VIX dropping more than 7% from the recent highs, as it was nearing the 25 levels which would imply more volatility ahead for the stock market. We saw ¾ of the companies gaining yesterday on decent volume, with 145 new highs, as all 11 sectors finished in the green, with Utilities and Energy leading the way up almost 2%, while just 2 sectors gained less than 1% for the day, the Communications sector and the consumer staples. This rally was pushed by almost every type of company, especially small and mid-caps, as large-caps lagged a bit and were pretty much flat for the day, with the exception of Apple as you can see in this HEAT MAP, as I said in a previous post, I believe that Apple is ready for takeoff after more and more reports of great numbers in the new iPhone 12 lineup sales, and with the Fitness+ service launching this Monday this keeps increasing the number of services that Apple offers. I believe that the Apple One bundle will be a great revenue stream for them alongside the move to the 5G in the next years. So here is the economic calendar for today as we start off early in the morning with MBA mortgage applications, followed but retail sales, PMI, inventories and finish up with the last meeting and decisions from the FED in 2020. We also received news that as soon as the FDA & CDC give approval, which could and probably will happen as soon as this weekend, Moderna will be able to ship over 6M doses right away, more than double what Pfizer delivered in the initial shipment. This is happening while the stimulus appears closer than ever, but it should be noted that it does appear it will not include any stimulus checks for citizens. As the Congress seems to be targeting a $750B relief package. This is very needed as the savings, especially for low-income households, has been substantially on the declin since May, just like always, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This measures from the Government have been unexpectedly just been called upon from Warren Buffett also, as he emphasized that small businesses have become collateral damage, though he previously said he wouldn’t speak in public about this until May, the degrading situation probably made him change his mind. We will also have the FED starting its meetings today, and follow up tomorrow, with most analysts expecting the FED to lay out the plans for additional asset purchases to provide additional support for the economy. And even if this is a temporary measure, it would be great for the economy if they keep this program going until the vaccine is more widely available and the reopening can come back in full force. Yesterday we also got numbers on the Industrial Production, which beat the consensus with a .4% increase M/M while capacity utilization also increased with the manufacturing output way better than expected. This was led especially by motor vehicle and parts sales which were up 5.3%. So, with some good news in the last period, a recent survey showed that fewer respondents believe that stocks are overpriced or overvalued right now. I think this is a fair opinion, as we have gone through a period of consolidation since the beginning of November, stocks have become more stable, some have lost ground, some have gained. This is very healthy for the broad stock market and may eventually start a new bull run very soon. On some other stock market news, we saw the whole green energy sector getting a big boost yesterday, as the US Congress seems to have agreed to a package of tax incentives and extensions for both wind and solar projects. Some of the biggest gainers yesterday were SunPower, Enphase, SolarEdge, with most of the companies from the INVESCO Solar ETF trading way higher. As we also saw PENN national gaining yesterday after giving great news again to investors, as they have acquired a new casino in Maryland as they keep expanding their nationwide footprint. Meanwhile, we will get Lennar Q4 earnings today after the close, and I expect them to have a great quarter, but this hasn’t helped many companies this quarter, as even great earnings results haven’t pushed most companies to have big gains, I think Lennar will post a terrific quarter as a result of the continuing strong housing market as more and more people flee big cities attracted by better tax implications while they also run from the growing poverty in states like California. Some good news also came from the Eurozone this morning, as the PMI popped up to 49.8 which is still a contraction for the economy, but that is an improving view of the economy overseas, up from 45.3 in November. We also have to keep an eye on what ABNB and Doordash will do, as investors are starting to get the chance to short this highly valued IPOs. So, this might hit the stocks even more after they have suffered in the last days as I expected. And one last bit of news, Aphria is merging with Tilray, they will become an almost $4B market cap cannabis player, as they seek to also move to the US and grow its market share in the country, as the full legalizing of cannabis in the US seems to be approaching. This will help both companies to be able to have low-cost, state of the art cultivations alongside improved processing and manufacturing facilities. This will also position them for a better footprint in the EU, with Aphria having a footprint in Germany, while Tilray has a low-cost production facility in Portugal. I think the pot and clean energy sectors alongside the EVs are the ones to watch in the next years. Let’s hope for another great day in the market as the FUTURES seem to be pointing at a good open, hopefully some green action continues after that. Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market! Have a great day and see you next time!
Covid-19 Update for December 8: 1,727 new cases, 1,397 recoveries, 9 deaths + Announcement of additional mandatory measures
Data is taken from the Covid-19 portal and today's availability by Dr Deena Hinshaw, Premier Jason Kenney, Minister of Health Tyler Shandro, and Minister of Jobs Doug Schweitzer. Dr Hinshaw's next availability is tomorrow. There are currently enhanced measures in effect for multiple regions of Alberta and have been enhanced as of today. This link provides a quick summary of which ones are in effect for different regions of Alberta. Top line numbers:
For values where "Current" and "Total" are the same, I have left results under Total
Value
Current
Change
Total
Total cases
—
+1,727
71,379
Active cases
20,388
+321
—
Cases with "Unknown source"
10,575 (83.9%) in last 7 days
+427 (+0.4%)
—
Tests
—
+19,071 (~9.06% positive)
2,410,675
People tested
—
+7,433
1,534,783 (~355,521/million)
Hospitalizations
654
+45/+35 based on yesterday's post/portal data
2,325 (+64)
ICU
112
+4
413 (+10)
Deaths
—
+9 (4x 70-79, 5x 80+)
640
Recoveries
—
+1,397
51,000
Spatial distribution of people tested, cases, and deaths (since yesterday):
All other values are compared with respect to yesterday
Zone
Active Cases
New People Tested
Total
New Cases
Total
New Deaths
Total
Calgary
7,529 (+57)
+2,654
621,003
+583
28,946
+2
215
Central
1,526 (+53)
+1,005
134,204
+176
3,881
+1
20
Edmonton
9,383 (+193)
+2,664
513,626
+791
29,901
+5
304
North
1,212 (+65)
+739
143,747
+165
4,757
+0
51
South
646 (-8)
+307
97,153
+57
4,307
+1
50
Unknown
92 (-39)
+64
25,050
-45
236
+0
0
Spatial distribution of cases for select cities and regions (change since yesterday) (cities proper for Calgary and Edmonton):
City/Municipality
Total
Active
Recovered
Deaths
Edmonton
24,542 (+625)
7,586 (+151)
16,692 (+469)
264 (+5)
Calgary
24,245 (+507)
6,490 (+117)
17,562 (+388)
193 (+2)
Brooks
1,296 (+2)
24 (-4)
1,258 (+6)
14 (+0)
Lethbridge
1,175 (+22)
259 (+9)
909 (+13)
7 (+0)
Fort McMurray
906 (+20)
222 (-3)
682 (+23)
2 (+0)
Red Deer
832 (+45)
373 (+18)
449 (+27)
0
High River county
658 (+2)
49 (-6)
602 (+8)
7 (+0)
Grande Prairie
562 (+15)
106 (+10)
451 (+5)
5 (+0)
Mackenzie county
447 (+4)
19 (+4)
415 (+0)
13 (+0)
Medicine Hat
334 (+11)
89 (-3)
240 (+14)
5 (+0)
I.D. No 9 (Banff)
324 (+8)
109 (-14)
215 (+22)
0
Cardston county
200 (+2)
37 (-2)
157 (+4)
6 (+0)
Wheatland county
146 (+1)
6 (-1)
140 (+2)
0
Warner county
137 (+1)
30 (-2)
105 (+3)
2 (+0)
Wood Buffalo municipality
111 (+1)
8 (+0)
103 (+1)
0
Rest of Alberta
16,113 (+461)
4,981 (+47)
11,010 (+412)
122 (+2)
Other municipalities with 10+ active cases is given at this link Schools with outbreaks are listed online. Quick numbers (as of today):
108 schools are on Watch (+2)
141 schools have 2-4 cases (+10)
Spatial distribution of hospital usage (change based on yesterday's post):
Hospitalization zone are where the patient is receiving care, not zone of residence
Zone
Hospitalized
ICU
Calgary
198 (+14)
34 (+2)
Edmonton
357 (+22)
66 (+3)
Central
50 (+3)
6 (+1)
South
18 (+4)
2 (-1)
North
31 (+2)
4 (-1)
Statements by Premier Kenney Opening Statements
Here to lay out additional health measures which are necessary to protect healthcare system and save lives
Alberta has faced most of the year with lower levels of spread, hospitalizations, and fatalities
Having said that, last few weeks are different
Incredible work is being done by healthcare workers in face of this
Delays in surgeries have occurred, which for some may result in a shorter lifespan
Not doing anything now will result in continued growth of hospitalizations and further strain on healthcare
On advice of chief medical officer, restrictions have occurred. Government realizes that this can impact businesses and cause adversities
Knows many feed policies are unjust and why provincial government has stressed education first instead of using policy
On the other hand, while space can be made, it will have further health impacts (e.g. running out of capacity in hospitals)
If stronger action isn't taken now, hundreds or thousands more Albertans will die
Data appears to suggest a stabilization (around a reproductive factor of around 1.2), but that isn't enough
New Restrictions
As of today, all outdoor and indoor social gatherings are banned
The mask mandate will expand to all indoor places, with exception of rental homes and farm operations
As of December 13th, 12:01 AM:
(1) Retail, grocery stores, and shopping malls are restricted to 15% of capacity, down from 25%. Kiosks are open for takeaway service only. Malls cannot be used for socialization and shopping only
(2) Places are worship to 15% occupancy with previous restrictions applying. Online and drive-in services are still recommended
(3) Restaurants, pubs, bars, lounges and cafes are restricted to takeout and delivery services only. This will open up their access to provincial and federal supports
(4c) Indoor entertainment (e.g. libraries, science centres, water parks)
(4d) Trade centres
The restrictions do not apply to service visits, healthcare, or childcare .
(5) All Alberta employees must work from home unless employer requires physical presence for operational reasons (up from a recommendation)
No changes to schools beyond what was previously announced
These are all province wide and will be in effect for 4 weeks
Goal has been to be targeted. However, the whole province is seeing significant spread
Christmas
Knows the holidays are important for many people
The hard truth is that the single source of spread is at-home gatherings
If we let people gather for Christmas, we'll see a spike in cases
We can't let that happen, so please follow the gathering restrictions previously noted (only in-household or with 2 close contacts if you live alone)
Increased Enterprise Support
This isn't the fault of anybody who followed the guidelines
Until the contact tracing system was overwhelmed, we didn't see it being the fault of business owners
But we are seeing spread so widespread, it doesn't matter how careful you were
These are decisions are a last resort
Knows this impact will be real. So financial support for small and medium size enterprise
4x growth in small and medium enterprise relaunch grant, while lowering eligibility from 40% of revenue lost to 30%. This will also be retroactive to March
Closing Statements
Thanks Albertans for their work for most of the past 9 months
We are seeing the end with vaccination possibly beginning in weeks...the end is in sight
Q&A
Why now, instead of two weeks ago?: Goal is to reduce contacts, assuming Albertans respond. This should be a very strong message and reduce transmissions. Measures have been increasingly harsh because each restriction creates harms, will hurt people who have sunk all their money in a business, and potentially increase self-harm. So this is a last resort
Why keep retail open instead of just curbside?: Encourages curbside, but some people may not be able to live without basic goods. Even most stringent policies around the world have kept retail open in some capacity. Feels the designation of essential and non-essential businesses in spring was a mistake
Why is cabinet being transparent about the reproductive value (R or Rt)?: Are preparing ways to publicly present this data, as well as healthcare capacity. Targeting next week
Do you think the softer measures before will cost lives/make economic recovery more difficult?: Shutting down early would have had significant impacts. Thinks it'd be a huge mistake to draw correlations between strictness of restrictions and outcomes and that there is a reasonable balance being stuck
Since you defined Covid representing "a tiny percent" of deaths, 300 deaths have occurred. There have been significant growths in hospitalization and cases. Do you take personal responsibility?: Rejects the premise of the question and calls it more of an "NDP speech". Feels the province has done more than other jurisdictions, especially early on. Also notes that BC, who has a government of opposite end of the political spectrum, has had a similar approach
Statements by Minister Shandro Additional Details on Health Measures
Goal is to limit in-person interaction
Retail restriction has a floor of 5 people
Ski hills can remain open, provided restrictions are followed
Realizes that this is a lot to take in, but person-to-person exposure is fuelling the spread
We need limit contacts and be aware of the situation around you (even outdoors or at the grocery store)
Q&A
How does outdoor gathering ban even work?: Goal is to restrict social gatherings. So do not socially gather indoors or outdoors. If they gather in a park or on the sidewalk, that isn't allowed. Difficulty will certainly lie in enforcement and hopes it won't need to be used. It will be up to law enforcement to determine if they feel they need to use it
(Additional comment by Dr Hinshaw: Intention is to prevent group social activities. Not prohibited is fitness activities provided distancing occurs)
Statements by Minister Schweitzer Opening Statements
Wants to make people aware that there will be significant impacts. This is not lost on anyone in government
Knows many people are impacted because people have ignored public health orders.
Additional Details on Small Business Supports
40% may not be able to re-open after these closures without supports
Small businesses may now qualify for $20,000 support (up from $5,000) with a decrease in revenue lost to 30%
An additional 15,000 businesses should be able to qualify for this (totalling 500 million dollars)
Q&A
How many people will be affected with these restrictions?: ~30,000 businesses will be affected. Will be seeing how many people
Statements by Dr Hinshaw Cases
426 schools have active cases (~18%) with total of 1,701 cases
108 schools on watch list (5+ active cases)
Edmonton Zone
The Royal Alexandra Hospital has decided to place facility on "Watch" status as a precautionary measure
Hospitals are safe places to receive care, but be aware that staff are under extreme stress
Edmonton Zone will enact additional measures:
(1) Postponing up to 60% of non-urgent surgeries (up from 30%)
(2) Diagnostic imaging may be reduced by up to 40%
(3) Ambulatory visits and procedures may be reduced as needed
AHS will contact those who are impacted
This is why these measures are needed and a sign of how Covid may impact more than the ill
Scope of the Situation
If you gathered all the people who have tested positive, it would be the 5th largest city in Alberta
1/3 people have been tested
On October 8, positive rate was 1.34% with 184 cases in province
Today, positive rate is 9% and 7 day average is 1,785
Outbreaks in almost all group settings
People from 1 to 108 have been infected
Knows restrictions will impact many people
The fastest way to get there is to embrace these restrictions
Knows many people have embraced already, but everybody will need to do more
Q&A
Why do we think these measures will work, after the last two rounds?: This is the most significant round of restrictions. Points to Israel as an example (who shrunk their cases faster than even their first wave). Target will be to bring the health system out of risk
If someone is coming in from out of province, is that allowed?: If it's someone from out of province, it isn't allowed
A follow up question noted an example of family members in Alberta were quarantining were 2 weeks before Christmas. Challenge is that enforcement of a "quarantine" will be difficult to control. Province is saying "gathering for Christmas" won't be allowed with people who don't live in the home. Knows it's a big imposition but any suggestions like in the question may cause a Thanksgiving-like increase in spread
Silver slam down on Feb 2, 2021 in after hours market
I am just a retard .... With unprecedented demand on the retail side and also unprecendented inflows into ETF ... the price of silver gets slammed down on Feb 2, 2021 between 2am-4am in aftepre hours trading on comex futures market. The SLV etf had to buy or lease over 120M oz over a three day period! There are multiple silver ETF's and the custodian for most/all is JPM. This after hours manipulation is right in your face .... and followed up by a marketwatch headline "Miners decline as JP Morgan downgrades sector and silver prices slide from eight year high" posted at 4:59 am Feb 2, 2021. This is all documented by Chris Marcus at Arcadia Economics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKZD6cQUGpg&t=121s Also documented by Ted Butler at silevrseek : https://silverseek.com/article/cats-out-bag The CFTC ran an investigation into silver manipulation and initially told us that they could find no violations. This is after 10 years of Ted Butler and others pointing out specific days and actions in aftepre hour trading that made no sense. The the CFTC runs another investigation and this time they do find manipulation ... by who ... JPM: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8260-20 A free market is one where there is supply and demand. As the demand goes up the price goes up and when the demand drops the price goes down. This is NOT what we have in the physical silver market ... because regardless of the supply/demand the market are manipulated by future's contract traders. Feb 2, 2021 is proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the market is and continues to be manipulated. I suspect the manipulation is by the big 8 commercial banks on the COT and also includes some hedge funds. The little investor always gets the short end of the stick ... The CFTC the SEC and the Department of Justice should engage the FBI to investigate this market manipulation. Here is the press release from the SEC as per the JPM criminal violation: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-233 I want to add some value to this thread beyond the great work by Ted Butler and Chris Marcus. Lets examine that 920M fine being paid by JPM for market manipulations of tens of thousands of times between 2008 and 2016. How much do you think JPM makes in derivatives trading of commodities in a single year? Lets go and find out ... : https://occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/quarterly-report-on-bank-trading-and-derivatives-activities/files/pub-derivatives-quarterly-qtr3-2020.pdf Look at page 29 graph 9a and 9b (3 quarters 2020 of revenues in commodity and others derivatives) trading revenue of all commercial and saving and loan banks is 6.062B (1.664B, 2.486B, 1.912B) trading revenue os all holding companies is 2.777B (646, 905, 1226) Total revenue 6.062 + 2.777 = 8.839B for first 3 quarters 2020. Now look at page 35 graph 15 for the amount of derivatives contracts in commodities: JPM : 39B , HSBC : 12B, Citibank : 10B, BOA : 3B, Wells Fargo : 2B Now look at page 43 table 7: Trading revenue from commodities and other positions top 4 commercial banks for Q3 2020 JPM : 734M, GS : 0, Citi : 316M, BOA : 6M So top 4 commercial banks made 1.056B in Q3 alone from derivatives based on commodities and others. I am guessing that the majority of those profits are from the gold and silver commodities. The fine of 920M basically is a slap on the wrist! Given these guys make 734M in Q3 alone ... what will they make over an entire year? Since I am a retard .. lets go back and find the data for Q1 and Q2 and then lets interpolate Q4 and see if this 920M is really that much of fine. In Q2 JPM made 632M from trading derivatives in commodities and others. (table 7 pg49 q2 report) In Q1 JPM made 389M from trading derivatives in commodities and others.(table 7 pg49 q1 report) So that totals 389 + 632 + 734 = 1.755B revenue over first 3 quarters of 2020. Lets assume they make another 500M in Q4 ... this is just a guess ... but that would then total 2.255B for the year. The 920M fine is simply so small it is laughable ... these guys are making over 2B per year and have been doing this manipulation for years. Retards wake up ... SEC, CFTC, Department of Justice, FBI , are NOT doing enough to protect our markets. The criminals never go to jail ... instead they plea bargain and pay fines that are so small it NEVER stops them from going back and doing the same behavior. Sure they throw a few traders under the bus but those at the top never pay a price. Jamie Dimon is the head of JPM. This behavior is NOT a free market .. it is corruption and it is criminal behavior by the biggest market players. I am sick and tired of no rule of law in the market. It is time for all of us retards to stop playing the rigged game. Time for us to move into markets that are not manipulated by big commercial banks via futures market. What is that ... Crypto! I will continue to keep a small silver investment in an etf like sprott. I will no longer play in the rigged game of call options on slv, gld, and or any of the miners. I will move my money out of all the miners gradually and I will build positions in ethereum and bitcoin. The unintended consequence of allowing corruption in the market is that all of us move our money somewhere else ... and out of the rigged casino. I would rather take my risks in the crypto markets then have my money stolen by the big banks with their enormous short positions in gold, silver and also in some of the miners like first majestic. Time for us all to wake up. The puts on Silver future exchange slammed physical silver price down and it took all my profits on Tuesday Feb 2, 2021 ... and now I am losing money ... It will not happen again ... JPM, BOA, CITI, GS, HSBC, BOA, WFC, MS, Barclays, Deutsche Bank you have all screwed up the free market ... and now we are all leaving the game. I regrettable will probably see all these same criminals over in the crypto space over the next few years. My only hope is that fintech will destroy these criminal operations. This retard has had his fill ... I can no longer wait for CFTC, SEC, Department of Justice, and the FBI to bring down criminal trading desks.
All this with GameStop has got me thinking-even in a market as hot as the one now, there have still got to be plenty of undervalued stocks. Given that hypothesis, I have decided to gather information and produce bull theses on stocks that I believe are dramatically undervalued in the stock market from time to time. I do not know how often I will do this, it just depends on whether or not it picks up steam, but it is something fun to occupy my time with! Keep in mind, that I am not a financial advisor, and none of this is financial advice. So, without further ado, I present my first case: I believe that Las Vegas Sands (LVS) is dramatically undervalued-even as a resort chain during a global pandemic. There are a number of reasons for this: To put it simply, the stock has taken an unjustified beating during the pandemic, especially on this last earnings report. Other casino stocks, such as MGM and Wynn Resorts, have recovered at a far greater rate while not being as attractive as LVS in my opinion. Locations: LVS has an attractive portfolio of locations, including the very popular Venetian in Las Vegas-which includes an expo/convention center for the NUMEROUS corporate conventions that do and will continue to take place- as well as the Palazzo. Additionally, LVS has multiple resorts in Macao, where it holds one of only SIX casino licenses to serve the entire Chinese economy. Finally, LVS also operates Marina Bay Sands in Singapore-where they have one of only TWO casino licenses. In short, Sands is a leader in the US and Asian casino markets, both highly lucrative areas in the industry. Asia: As the middle class in China continues to grow at a rapid rate, more consumers will vacation to Macao and Singapore and drive up revenues in the area post-pandemic. Sands’ casino license is good through May of 2022, so they will be able to serve this growing middle class for the next 15 months and, I believe, well beyond. If you are concerned about the expiration of the licenses, don’t be. MGM and SJM holdings both had licenses set to expire in 2020, but both were renewed until 2022 by the Chinese government. The gaming industry in Macao has some serious weight, being the city’s largest employer and accounting for 82% of government revenue to the city. The Chinese government would have very little interest in adjusting or revoking the licenses unless a company made an egregious misstep. A misstep by LVS is highly unlikely, as the market is very lucrative and doing anything to compromise access to that market would be nonsensical. Further, Sands' Singapore license is highly coveted given that the only other license belongs to Genting Group, a company based in Malaysia-LVS has no US competitors in Singapore, and no competitors that are listed on US stock exchanges, making them your best bet for the Asian casino market in the United States. The balance sheet: As of December 31, 2020-nearly a year into the pandemic-LVS had a cash balance of $2.12 billion, which is quite healthy. While LVS does have outstanding debt of roughly $14 billion, this is not really of any concern, as net revenue amounted to just shy of $13.8 billion in 2019, a number I would expect to return-and even grow-after the pandemic. Additionally, capital expenditures for LVS amounted to only $252 million in 2020, giving some longevity to the balance sheet as revenues continue to recover slowly. New CEO: Robert Goldstein has been with LVS since 1995, when The Venetian was in its planning phase. During this time, he was instrumental in attracting restauranteurs and retailers. He has served in a variety of leadership positions, including as COO of the company. Under Goldstein’s leadership, LVS achieved financial performance records and has been positioned a leader in regulatory compliance, an important note when considering the casino industry-especially in Asia, where noncompliance could get their highly coveted license revoked. Nobody can say that it is easy to be in the hospitality industry during a global pandemic, but I believe that Las Vegas Sands has the market, the balance sheet, and the knowledge to weather this storm and grow in the aftermath. I first bought in to LVS at approximately $59 per share before cutting my losses at $56 to wait for a better buy point. Well, that buy point has been achieved. As of January 29, I am back in on LVS at $48 per share with a price target of $65.
Dec/29/2020 news: \\ political party law reformed: idea > individual; transparency; female % \\ Pashinyan responds to "not being enough pro-Russian" \\ who owns which business? \\ protests & snap elect. \\ burglary case & HHK MP \\ humanitarian aid for Artsakh \\ Vitalik flexes muscles \\ bills pass
Your 14-minute Tuesday report in 3589 words.
Pashinyan about pre-war negotiations and "avoiding" the war:
The idea that a flexible foreign policy could have avoided this war is being constantly circulated. Those [former officials] who believe in this thesis must answer at least one question: as a result of their "flexible" policy, why was it not possible to avoid the war of 2016, which was preceded by the unprecedented escalation of 2015 and 2014? The "flexible" policy adopted by Armenia for many years led to the introduction of Russian proposals in January 2016, which proposed the return of 7 territories (5 + 2) without any legal status for Nagorno-Karabakh. Why did Russia make such an offer? For one simple reason, as a result of Armenia's "flexible" policy, the Madrid process had come to a standstill because Artsakh could receive a Status outside Azerbaijan only with the consent of Azerbaijan. It was obvious to Russia and everyone else that Azerbaijan would not agree to this, so it was necessary to find ways to break the deadlock. And, by the way, if certain people claim that Armenia's foreign policy after 2018 was not sufficiently pro-Russian and this was the reason for the war, then why in the conditions of the "sufficiently pro-Russian" policy of 2016 were Russian proposals born and why did the April war take place? There was only one way to prevent this war: return the regions and forget about Artsakh's legal status. Now, after the war is over and we know the outcome, the number of supporters of [giveaway of 7 regions] is growing. What they forget is that if we gave away the lands to avoid the war, we would have the same situation in Syunik borders. They used to accuse us of "selling lands" [he means the contradictory statements like Nikol sold the lands, and why didn't Nikol sell the lands earlier to avoid the war]. The biggest failure by the supporters of the "flexible policies" is that they spent years trying to avoid a war instead of preparing for it. Our biggest failure is that we weren't able to recover enough embezzled public property in the past 2.5 years to help us better prepare for the war. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039231.html
businesses owned by opposition leaders
What are the known businesses owned by some of the famous people you might have seen in the public square lately?
Vazgen Manukyan
20% share in Lorva Amrots Ltd which plans to operate two hydro-power plants on Dzoraget river. Manukyan purchased the shares in 2011 after being appointed by Serj as the head of the Public Council. In 2015-2016, he owned 30% shares in Vanavka Group. In 2015-2017 he had 30% shares in Jermakunq Group. These companies extracted and bottled water. At the time, the director of these companies was charged with illegal bottling and causing ֏55 million in damages to the state. The corruption case was sent to the IRS, which terminated the investigation after "not finding a crime". The companies export the products mostly to Russia.
Arthur Vanetsyan
Vanetsyan is a poor boy, according to the public declarations database. But if you have time, take a look at the investigative report I covered in Ap29/2020 news, according to which Vanetsyan's family allegedly used offshore firms and owns mining shares. More on that here. Here is a Hetq investigative report. Vanetsyan's father owns AV Group flower importing business. About a year ago, the police investigated several flower sellers near a stadium. An opposition outlet claimed that the sellers were "beaten and forced" to testify that Vanetsyan's father was running an underground business. This was never properly proven and the opposition's claim that Vanetsyan was about to be charged did not happen. The police confirmed that there was an investigation against several flower sellers. These flower sellers ended up hiring Vanetsyan's co-party-creator Arsen Babayan as a lawyer. Vanetsyan's father owns 50% shares of A B Export oil import company that began operating in 2017. It was a minor player that quit the market in 2019. Vanetsyan's father also owns 60% of A B Trans transportation company. In Nov/2019, CivilNet wrote about Arthur Vanetsyan's cousins' possible involvement with Zangezur Copper factory (massive business). The same offshore firm in Cyprus, which purchased Zangezur shares, was tied to Vanetsyan's cousins' another business in the same offshore. Vanetsyan's cousins also own a Switzerland-based Exoil wholesale cooking oil and shipping company. In 2019 it had a revenue of $148 million (11 billion Rubles). The cousins don't do this business in Armenia. Per 2019 registration, Arthur Vanetsyan himself owns one apartment, $10,000, and ֏1 million. Media reported in May/2020 that Vanetsyan's cousin purchased a ֏300 million mansion in Yerevan, which was donated to then-new political party "Hayreniq", co-founded by Arthur Vanetsyan and Arsen Babayan (the guy who is accused of helping HHK to fabricate documents in 2018 to hijack the Constitutional Court by appointing HHK MP Hrayr Tovmasyan as a judge). Arthur Vanetsyan's mother served as the chief of the personnel-management department in Serj and Pashinyan administrations, before quitting and working as Serj's aide. Vanetsyan's wife owns Villa Montessori preschool in Yerevan. She also runs the Young Education Center Ltd.
ARF Ishkhan Saghatelyan
Pashinyan appointed Saghatelyan as Gegharquniq governor for a brief period after the 2018 revolution, when Pashinyan created a unity-government, represented by all political parties. The honeymoon soon ended and each party went their way. Saghatelyan owns shares in i-mega Service Ltd. It's a tourism agency founded in 2006. It operates in Armenia, Artsakh, and Georgia. Saghatelyan founded Navasar company and serves as director. It's owned by his father. Saghatelyan family owns the Tsovasar hotel complex on Lake Sevan shores. It's 10,000 m2 (a hectare?). As of 2018, Saghatelyan declared ownership of 8 pieces of land, 2 apartments, ֏18.5 million, $45,000, and €15,000. Saghatelyan's father is the mayor of Gegharquniq's Geghamavan settlement. This municipality had recently sent a letter demanding Pashinyan's resignation. Saghatelyan used to be a shareholder of Shiman Ltd which is no longer active.
BHK leader Gagik "dodi gago" Tsarukyan
BUCKLE UP, KIDS! Overall, Tsarukyan runs 54 companies. Студент, комсомолец, спортсмен, u наконец, он просто красавиц. His business empire was covered in details here. Textile, gas stations, malls, Multi Group empire, Shangri-La Casino, Ararat Cognac & Wine Factory, BMW official office Euromotors (also Hyundai, Gazel, Niva), Multi Motors, Magas Invest, Multi Wellness, Olimpavan sports complex, Kotayk beer factory, TechnAlyumin door & window factory, Multi Rest House hotel chain, Paravon luxury restaurant, Onira Club, Zvartnot's airport's upper-level service company Avia Service, Farm Adama, Multi Pharm pharmacy, Multi Leon gas stations, Multi Solar solar panels. He owns shares in Frank Mueller Yerevan watch company, Fortsa, Multi Gold, Multi Diamond jewelry firms, several fish-breeding businesses. He also runs businesses in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia. Per official declaration, he owns $168 million, €29 million, ֏675 million, 14 pieces of land, 6 houses, 2 public buildings, 1 apartment.
Details for BHK MP Mikael Melkumyan and HHK Vahram Baghdasaryan in the link below.
The street demonstrations, organized by the former regime and its allies, continue. They demand Pashinyan's resignation and the appointment of their candidate Vazgen Manukyan as the Prime Minister for the duration of a year, after which they agree to hold new elections. ARF leader Artsvik Minasyan said they don't plan to discuss snap elections with Pashinyan. "Right now, our only demand is Pashinyan's resignation. We demand SIS to immediately hold every criminal accountable". The demonstrators gathered in front of the SIS building to present the demands. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039316.html
Pashinyan meets leaders of several opposition parties
QP leader Lilith: there is a possibility there will be a meeting between Pashinyan and the three Parliamentary political parties. They could discuss snap elections. The impression is that politicians who demand Pashinyan's resignation do not want snap elections in an attempt to bypass the citizen's right to form a government. Our political team reaffirms the position that none of us is clinging on seats. // LHK MP Gorgisyan: we cannot hold snap elections now, under this chaotic situation. We will discuss snap elections if Pashinyan discusses his resignation and transfer of power. (LHK wants its leader Marukyan to be elected as Prime Minister by a Parliamentary vote) // Pashinyan met BHK leader Tsarukyan. The latter is against holding snap elections unless Pashinyan resigns now, and presumably, he wants Vazgen Manukyan appointed as PM. LHK leader Marukyan also wants Pashinyan to resign now so a new Prime Minister can form a new government cabinet "consisted of experts". https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039261.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039268.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039299.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039322.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039323.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039327.html
felony case: ex-HHK MP charged with armed attack on ex-IRS official
In August of this year, Russia extradited a former HHK MP Alraghatsi Lyovik to Armenia. He was wanted for allegedly burglarizing and shooting at a senior IRS official a decade ago. At the time, his case was "frozen". It was relaunched in 2018. (magic wand) NSS says: suspect Lyovik, with the help of citizens AK and AN, organized an armed burglary against IRS Chief (?) Avetisyan in 2008. AK was in the United States. In 2004, he stole $150,000 from jewelry shops in Los Angeles. He got caught but managed to flee to Armenia. Once in Armenia, AK colluded with policeman AN to organize a similar criminal ring in Armenia. [MP] Lyovik personally knew AK, and learned about their burglaries. Since Lyovik had bad relations with the IRS chief (victim), he decided to punish the victim by urging AK to burglarize his house. Lyovik revealed the plot to his brother-in-law, who happened to be the victim's personal aide. The latter gave all the personal habits and details about the victim to the burglars. [read the article for the full story, or wait for a Hollywood movie in theaters near you] The burglars and organizers are charged with felonies. https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 , https://youtu.be/brdozVbwQ6A , https://factor.am/274836.html , https://armtimes.com/hy/article/183522 , https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 ,
Russian Orthodox chapel will be built
... in the Armenian settlement near Nakhijevan where Azerbaijan had earlier shut down a Russian helicopter, which killed and wounded Russian pilots. It'll be on a hill in Yeraskh. Construction starts on January 6th. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039259.html
Russian peacekeepers conducted training
... to stay in shape. A report by WarGonzo's Semyon Pegovn who returned to Artsakh to meet the New Year there. https://youtu.be/-c1BSTkC-a8
Russia and Turkey comment
Russian MFA: The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh should not be used for the infiltration of foreign mercenaries into the region. Here we have exactly the same position as our Turkish partners. Turkish MFA: we see that a ceasefire has been established. We hope to establish the joint RU-TR monitoring center soon. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039281.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039282.html
Vitalik Balasanyan will return the lands, kicks junkies, and restrict Facebook
Artsakh President Arayik earlier announced that he will allow his opponents to take jobs in the new coalition government. Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan became the Security Council chief. Vitalik: we will return Hadrut and Askeran region with the help of Russian and Armenian military-political efforts. We are in a better situation now to solve territorial issues. We will soon create border guard forces. It will report to MoD, which will report to the Security Council (his office). Drugs have no place in Artsakh. Drug users must quit or leave Artsakh now. We need to return to traditional values of giving women as wives after asking if the man had served in the army. No public official will be allowed to use Facebook during work. More: https://youtu.be/DceHyi4AB5g https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289056/
search operations are paused / the "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign
Azerbaijan received criticism for refusing to allow search teams to enter the Hadrut region yesterday. They also prevented UNESCO from checking the status of several Armenian cultural sights, after complaining that UNESCO was "biased" against Azerbaijan during the war. HR Ombudsman: Any untrue information can not be a reason to disrupt the humanitarian process [referring to unconfirmed rumors on social media that Armenians opened fire at Azeris in Hadrut. An unofficial Iranian social media channel claims 3 Azeris were killed but due to an internal fight.] The Human Rights Ombudsman also criticized the Azeri troops for installing a provocative "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign on part of a road that went under Azeri control near Syunik borders. The Ombudsman says it's meant to intimidate the locals. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039233.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039237.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039244.html , https://factor.am/325511.html
Context: BHK MP Naira Zohrabyan referred to the majority of Armenian voters as human trash *(or as she says: impure), and called for the establishment of forced re-education camps so people won't vote for a "wrong party" again. The ruling QP party launched a process to terminate her chairmanship in Parliamentary Human Rights Committee. Read yesterday's thread for more details.* QP MP Arthur: the law states that the Parliament can appoint and terminate the chairman. The termination of this seat does not require the same procedures as in the case of MPs and Judges. Armenian Constitution states that in Armenia, human beings are of the highest value, and inalienable human dignity is the inseparable basis of their rights and freedoms. MP Zohrabyan's public conduct is against it. // The law gives the second-largest political party the mandate to appoint the chairman of this particular Committee. BHK, being the second-largest party, said they wouldn't appoint a replacement if Zohrabyan is voted out. QP MP Arthur: per rules, if BHK refuses to appoint a new candidate, the largest (QP) party will receive the mandate. // Parliament voted 78-4 to terminate Zohrabyan's chairmanship. BHK and LHK did not vote. BHK MP Zohrabyan: this termination was a Constitutional crime. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039245.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039264.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039304.html , https://factor.am/325132.html
Parliament votes: registering parties becomes easier / ideology instead of person / financial transparency
The goal of this reform is to have political parties that are more about ideology and less about an individual. The reform will boost internal democracy within parties; it will expand the powers of the Party Assembly. Parties will be required to add more anonymous voting mechanisms. The law also requires more financial transparency. The required membership to register a party is lowered from 800 to 300. Some of the public funding given to political parties will depend on the % of female members in the administrative boards. Parliament voted 99-1 to approve it. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039270.html , https://youtu.be/bPuZViCCCxo
Parliament votes: monthly fees towards soldiers' recovery are raised
Most workers pay a monthly 1000 Dram towards the Soldiers' Fund, which takes care of wounded soldiers and families of those who died. The govt found it necessary to raise the fee to cover thousands of new recipients. Here are the new fees and salary brackets: ֏1,500 for < ֏100k/month ֏3,000 for < ֏200k ֏5,500 for < ֏500k ֏8,500 for < ֏1 million ֏15,000 for > ֏1 million Parliament voted 89-0 to approve it. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039296.html
Parliament votes: ban on public smoking is delayed until 2022
The govt had adopted a law to ban smoking in public cafes and the public display of cigarettes in grocery shops. The ruling party wanted to delay parts of the bill that were set to go into effect in January, citing possible financial issues for businesses caused by the pandemic. QP MP: the cigarette industry pays $383 million to state coffers. Healthcare Ministry: it will be a mistake if you delay this bill for the sake of $10 million in tax revenues. Parliament voted 86-0 to delay the anti-smoking bill until 2022. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039295.html
Parliament votes: no tax on goods donated to Armenia
QP MP: When you donate a charitable product to the Republic of Armenia, you are exempt from customs duties and other tax payments, except for one payment, which we are trying to exempt with this bill as well. // Parliament voted 80-0 to approve it. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039297.html
how is the Judicial Branch doing?
The Supreme Court protects or punishes judges. It also handles complaints. It's separate from the Constitutional Court. bad boys 19 complaints against judges were heard, 14 of which were petitioned by Justice Ministry and 4 by Judicial Ethics Board. 10 judges ended up receiving disciplinary penalties, 3 received a warning, 3 were reprimanded, 2 were terminated, 4 were cleared. the system is overloaded 61 judges are handling 6470 felony cases. 86 judges handle 175,940 civil cases. 24 judges handle 17,390 administrative cases. The number of Arbitration cases rose from 3100 to 9900. finances This year, Supremes appointed 20 new judges. Supreme's budget remained the same this year. They returned ֏607 million in savings back to state coffers. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039249.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039284.html
anti-corruption: SIS busts an IRS agent
SIS says: IRS border inspector took a bribe from a citizen to help him avoid paying Millions of ֏ in import taxes by splitting a large load into smaller pieces, so each piece would fall below the taxable threshold. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039293.html
IRS wants you to file less paperwork
IRS says the latest reforms will help the exporters and simplify the process in which Armenia is used as a transit country for trade. Some tasks can be done online. More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039247.html
update: electricity prices
...won't go up for low-income families or those using less than 400 kWh. That's 90% of consumers. The rest will pay 3 Drams more. The rates are presented (6-10¢): https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039285.html
police to guard Lake Sevan against poachers
Police and Nature Ministry have set up additional checkpoints as part of measures against whitefish poaching in Sevan. 24/7 monitoring on all alleys leading to the lake. They will also travel across markets to catch contraband whitefish. Why? It's the egg-laying season. Fishing is banned for now. The legally-allowed fishing tools were temporarily removed from the lake. https://youtu.be/8ZyRGpEazMQ https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039339.html
...the rest should have access to other jobs. There is an opportunity now because many businesses operate remotely. Call Center workers don't have to visit an office. Businesses would rather pay less to hire a rural remote worker than more to hire someone in a Yerevan office. The High Tech Ministry has an ongoing program to teach IT to 5,000 citizens. We must help workers to expand their skillset. We're working on a program to allow a worker to quit the job, not worry about the food on the table, and have enough time for education and learning new skills. The villagers should ideally lease their smaller lands to large agricultural producers," said Economy Minister Qerobyan. Full interview: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039319.html
State regulators bust another price-fixing ring: fruit mafia
Yesterday, the Economic Competition Committee busted the egg industry's alleged price-fixing and anti-competitive practices. Today they say a similar collision was observed in the orange, mandarin, kiwi, lemon industry. The companies Best Fruits, Art-Fruits, and Promout were slapped with a ֏39 million in penalties for colluding to raise the prices for the products that had an increased demand during the pandemic period. http://www.competition.am/.../resources/Vo370_17_12_2020.pdf https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039269.html
Lenovo slapped for "anti-competitive practice"
The Economic Competition Committee heard a petition filed by Oazis Computer company against Lenovo. The latter was issued a warning for anti-competitive behavior. Public Regulator: "Lenovo" company had the ability to influence the process of importing Lenovo computers to Armenia from non-EAEU trade bloc countries. "Lenovo" took steps to reduce the import of Lenovo computers from non-EAEU states, by discriminating against Oazis Computer importer. Lenovo is given a month to correct the issue and fix the requirement and standards related paperwork. (Facebook next?) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039333.html
Artsakh will also increase childbirth benefits
First child: ֏300k instead of ֏100k Second child: ֏300k instead of ֏200k (or ֏500k if one parent is disabled) As for monthly child care subsidy payments, it goes from ֏15k to ֏27k until the child turns 2. https://factor.am/325487.html
... thanks to generous diasporan donors like you. The first one was installed during the war in Goris city. https://factor.am/325090.html
Artsakh children receive New Years' gifts
Focus on Children Now charity organization distributed gifts to hundreds of Artsakh kids residing in Gegharquniq province. Backpacks, clothing, items of basic necessity, money, and postcards written by kids living in the United States. https://www.focusonchildrennow.org/ https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039302.html
Himnadram donates to refugee families
700 Artsakh families continue to live in 40 settlements of Gegharquniq province. The All Armenia Fund (HimnaDram.org) has provided food and household items to 241 families ahead of New Year. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039313.html
daily life in Syunik bordering villages Shurnukh and Vorotan
I wanted to share with the group some due diligence and speculation I have done around Gamehost (TSX: GH). I want to start by saying that this is not a situation where you urgently need to buy this right now and ride up a wave, there will be no rocket ships on this post and I strongly encourage you to perform your own due diligence and see if you want to buy this stock. This is an extremely low volume stock and if you rush to buy it, the price will go up far past the supply of sellers. I do not intend to pump this but only to get critique. Gamehost is an owner and operator of 3 casinos located in Alberta, 2 hotels in Grande Prairie and a retail store rented to a liquor store near one of the casinos. The 3 casinos are: Boomtown Casino in Fort McMurray, The Great Northern Casino in Grande Prairie and the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary which they own 91% of currently. As you probably guessed by these locations, the casinos are cyclical and make a lot of money when oil prices are up and go through downturns when prices are low and projects stop. All 3 casinos are not destination type casinos like you would find in Las Vegas where people come from all around to visit, but are very reliant on their local communities. The Boomtown Casino is the only casino in Fort McMurray and the Great Northern Casino is the only proper casino in Grande Prairie with a much smaller limited one in town. The Deerfoot Inn and Casino is 1 of 7 (yes, 7!) casinos in the Calgary area. It primarily focuses on the Southeastern portion of the city and the surrounding suburbs and still serves a market of about 200,000 people in just that area. All 3 casinos are also very focused on live events and have become gathering points for live events and nights out for their communities. Although all 3 casinos have been affected by oil downturns all 3 communities they serve have much higher median income than the country as a whole. The casinos have remained profitable throughout the entirety of the oil downturn and despite a dividend cut in 2016 they have still paid a consistently strong dividend until the COVID-19 pandemic (more on this later). Grande Prairie’s economy is more focused on natural gas extraction which has been consistently profitable. Calgary as a major city does have a diversified economy as well which leaves just Fort McMurray to be the lone straggler in dealing with oil prices. No new casinos have been built in Alberta since 2006, which has left people still coming to the doors of the casinos regardless of the economy. All three cities have seen consistent population growth greater than 10% from 2016 according to Statistics Canada’s estimates which is far greater than the national average. People are still coming to these cities and are still making a fairly high wage compared to the average Canadian. The second thing that has likely come to your mind is why casinos when they have been shut down during the pandemic? As the vaccine is currently being implemented the orders will not last forever. When the casinos have been opened even with reduced services, they have remained profitable and the management has responded by using the pandemic as an opportunity. They have been consistently buying back thousands of shares every day and cancelling them. If you look at their SEDAR profile you can see that they have not missed a single day to cancel at least 2,000 shares per day. Since the company had 24.5 million shares issued, they have bought back about 1-2% of the float so far which has made the stock even harder to buy on the open markets due to the lack of volume. They have also been approved to expand the operations of the Deerfoot Inn and Casino which should be completed by the summer. The insiders have followed by accumulating many shares in their personal accounts over this period of weakness. In the third quarter of 2020 the company posted EPS of 12 cents per share down from 16 cents a year ago. Revenue was down to $4.9 million from $6.7 million. This is with severe restrictions and limitations on the amount of people that can come in the casino and what they can do. All live events were cancelled, table games were restricted and yet the company was still making enough money to buy back significant shares and improve their existing assets. The management has essentially channelled the dividend into making the number of shares decrease in a time of strong price weakness. There is interest in this space since the largest casino operator in the country Great Canadian Gaming was acquired recently for almost double what they were trading for in the spring. Private equity firms have been looking into casinos as a post-recovery play. Unlike companies in airlines or movie theatres, these do not have significant issues staying profitable during intense downturns, they only become less profitable with a sudden surge afterwards. I am speculatively buying this stock on the idea that as COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted there will be an awkward window where people will be back almost to normal within Canada and will have a strong urge to go out and do activities that they have been restricted from doing for months. At the same time they will be unable to travel internationally due to different countries having different vaccination schedules, planes still operating at reduced capacity with many airlines being in trouble and governments being reluctant to remove limitations abroad. This will significantly bring business to casinos and other live event focused businesses within Canada. I anticipate that in the 12 months past restrictions being lifted that the business will see a significant bump in EPS. They will reinstate the dividend and the share price will grow significantly. My personal price target is $12 per share but I could see it being anywhere from $10-$15 per share. This is without oil prices budging at all. In the long-term the price will be cyclical based on oil prices unless they start diversifying geographically. It is extremely difficult to get a licence to open a casino, which leaves the company with the only option of acquiring other casinos. This is a possibility down the road but something I will look more into once I see a significant bump in EPS due to increased demand. I do believe that in the current market with the price having barely recovered from the March lows, that the stock is a very good contrarian play in the 12-24 month range. Holding after that could potentially be risky depending on your own views on how the oil industry will play out and if the management has what it takes to diversify. Online gambling is an even longer term threat but since these casinos are focused on live events and have become a staple of the communities that they are in, this is not likely to be a threat for some significant time. Please let me know what you think, feel free to criticize. If you guys like my analysis I could do more on other small or mid cap companies. There have been a few I have kicked myself over missing.
Atlantic City’s casino industry reported $2.65 billion in total gaming revenue last year, according to data released Wednesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. That figure represents combined revenue from casino win (table games and slot machines), NJ online gaming, and sports betting. ATLANTIC CITY — Online gaming and sports betting could not come to the rescue in November, as significant year-over-year declines in brick-and-mortar casino revenue resulted in a nearly 10% overall Atlantic City’s nine casinos reported $260.86 million in total gaming revenue last month, compared with $288.6 million in November 2019. Statewide, the total amount of sports wagers set a new monthly record with more than $931.6 million in bets placed, the Press of Atlantic City reports. Here is a list of Atlantic City casinos revenue reported by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.The tables reflect activity at land-based activity and does not include NJ online casino revenue. Read more about NJ online gambling revenue and NJ sports betting revenue.. Last updated: January 2021 Atlantic City gambling revenue, December 2020 Total gaming revenue reported by the city's nine casinos was more than $270.5 million last month, a nearly $50 million increase, or 22.6%, over January 2019, according to data released Wednesday Casino revenue has been dropping around the country. That was particularly true over March, April, and May, when most casinos were closed. This week, we learned how much money Atlantic City’s casinos managed to bring in during the month of July. Here’s where things stand. Reports on Casino Revenue in Atlantic City Are Out! How bad are the second quarter revenue figures for the Atlantic City casinos? The state Division of Gaming Enforcement, in its press release filed on Monday afternoon, declared, “In light of the casino closures, the Net Revenue and Gross Operating Profit (Loss) for the 2nd quarter and year-to-date are not comparable to the 2019 period.” eal estate developers and gambling interests are lobbying the state to grant early approval for city-based casinos, in an attempt to revive interest in a long-shelved proposal: a casino in New York City. With commercial real estate slumping and New York State desperately looking for new sources of revenue, this latest push could carry more weight than previous attempts, the New York Times reports. All In for City Revenue Revenue Boost for the City. Not only will the Norfolk Resort and Casino be an entertaining and exciting destination, it will also have a significant economic impact on the City of Norfolk and the Commonwealth of Virginia as a whole. It is estimated that each year, the resort and casino will provide the City with $26.2-$30.8 million in tax revenue. Casino City is an independent directory and information service free of any gaming operator's control. Warning: You must ensure you meet all age and other regulatory requirements before entering a Casino or placing a wager.
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