Not sure if this is the appropriate thread… Received this email today from ETrade:
This is a fantastic time to be an ETRADE customer. As of today, ETRADE has joined forces with Morgan Stanley—one of the world’s most respected wealth management and investment banking firms.
Any ideas on how this will benefit individual investors?
I expect it won’t matter, latest I heard MS is keeping everything the same at E*TRADE. It was a nice deal for ETFC shareholders, but that finished up and they got MS stock now.
Is it softbank again?
HTZ i’m not quite sure from that article, but I think they were betting Hertz would go bankrupt? If so, that was probably a good bet, since they are currently bankrupt (i’m currently short a little).
I think betting it would not go bankrupt… thru April. Htz filed for bankruptcy in May.
Not feeling so great about keeping so much money on the sidelines… But a Biden win and a Republican senate seems like it would tank the market (as opposed to Biden+Dem Senate that the economists seem to think results in a large boost) . Or Trump trying his best to burn down the country after the election if he loses…
But what odds to attach to either of those? I think 538 currently puts republican senate and biden win around 18% chance (31% chance republican senate control, but includes 13% Trump win chance… so 18% with split Senate from President). But there is no estimate for chance of Trump shenanigans after the election… Only the President’s word, which is worthless, but is clear that he doesn’t intend to respect election results if he loses.
It seems to me like the market is now pricing in a likely landslide as staving off Trump burning the country down like would be more likely in a closer loss… is this agreed?
Edit: seems to be some article with this observation Analysis: Investors' bets on a Democratic sweep grow after Biden debate performance | Reuters
I’ll take that as a sign of respect, that you think he’d somehow be more damaging than the overwhelming Democratic effort over the past 4 years to do the same.
Well sure. The office of President holds a lot of power, at least temporarily (such as when declaring an emergency).
That’s why we have the 25th Amendment to provide some protection from a mentally unstable occupant of the office who is unable to fulfill duties in accordance to the constitution and oath of office.
There’s a lot of dangerous and damaging actions that could occur before any application of the 25th would be complete, especially as the details have not really been tested previously.
If theatersstudios keep holding back their new films, since even the best ones wont be able to attain blockbuster status right now, they’re not going to have any screens left to show them on anyways…
It’s the studios that are holding back their films, in hopes of making more from them later when a larger audience might go see the movie. The theatres are stuck in the middle and, with a fair bit of debt, basically screwed. I’m short AMC stock and options currently. This just came out tonight.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amc-theaters-considers-bankruptcy-moviegoers-225417515.html
Yes, I mistyped that. I did mean the studios. The theaters want anything that will put butts in seats right now.
Yep, this is very short-sighted by the studios. Unless… unless they already expect all movie theaters to go bust and release all future movies via digital channels. I wonder how many people paid $30 to watch Mulan.
Looks like 2.2M people so far, if the imdb box office data is up to date and correct.
Except that while the theater chains may go bankrupt, at worst someone will buy the theaters themselves off the scrap heap. Most are profitable, as long as you arent trying to service a lot of debt with no customers.
I do understand the studio’s position. Would you prefer to release a $25M movie now, or a potential $250M movie next spring? And, they havent been making movies for a while either, so they dont want to run out of new inventory right when things start to heat up and get back to normal.
In other news, Theme park operator Cedar Fair (FUN) is down a couple bucks so far this week. However, there are growing signs that at least some of their parks that had previously announced being closed for the year may in fact be preparing to open for the Winterfest/Holiday season. That could provide a nice bump, if the market is in the right mood when it’s announced. If it’s announced, of course.
Theatres aren’t going away, they’ll just be owned by their creditors after bankruptcy rather than their current shareholders. Shutting down a business for a year to wait for these knee jerk lockdowns (or really just the election) to be over isn’t great for anyone but it’s only catastrophic if you’ve got debt you can’t pay.
More on AMC.
When you almost feel sorry for an oil company…
“Bengen says based on the current environment he thinks a new retiree should be safe if they start with a withdrawal rate of…no more than 5%.”
““The average is 7%,” he says. “4.5% is a pretty grim rule…4.5% is the ‘worst-case scenario.’””