Playing & Trading Strategy

Price History Chart (courtesy KaiGee)

We are off to a flying start in the second quarter with an 11.5% increase on the week and are up 16.3% so far for the month. The weekly increase per share was $5.88, which is almost double our target of $3.00 per share and we are now up 470% since IPO.

‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip’ (ALVN4) was released to very little fanfare but we benefited from being on the short side, initially, before flipping when friday’s opening predictions came in. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (MOTOE) duly IPO’d on Monday  and has continued to provide day trading opportunities all week. Other projects in the pipeline that were profitable for us were: ‘Eddie the Eagle’ (EDEGL), scheduled for release at the end of February and boosted by a new trailer; ‘Deadpool’ (DEADP), which had been underperforming and will continue to rise leading up to the trailer that will drop on Xmas Day; ‘Predator 4’ (PRED4); ‘The New Mutants’ (NMUTN); and B.O.O: Bureau of Otherwordly Operation’ (BOOU), an unwieldy title for a holdover project from Dreamworks Animation, that still doesn’t have a release date.

This week sees two stocks that we are holding cash out: ‘Brooklyn’ (BKLYN) and ‘Victor Frankenstein’ (FRNKS), as well as a couple of derivatives: the highly successful ‘The Martian Blockbuster Warrant (MARTN.BW) and the ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Trip $15 Call’ (ALVN.CA), which we shorted. These will free up some much needed cash for our next releases.

Friday sees the wide release of ‘Joy’ (JOY), David O. Russell’s take on the woman that invented the ‘Miracle Mop’. Although described as a ‘biopic’ it is in fact a highly fictionalised account, containing a familiar ensemble cast, that seems to have its focus firmly on the Oscars. Although by most accounts it falls someway short of Russell’s previous high watermark offerings like ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and ‘American Hustle’, it is currently showing 62% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and may struggle to reach its target audience over the holiday period. Combine this with the current over-saturation of Jennifer Lawrence and I am inclined to believe that we will go into the weekend short  on this one. The other release, ‘The Revenant’ (REVEN), opens in 4 theaters on Friday, to qualify for Academy Award nomination before going wide in January. In my opinion this release has far more legitimate claims to Oscar status than the aforementioned ‘Joy’. I would even go so far as to assert that this will be the film to break DiCaprio’s Oscar duck. Alejandro González Iñárritu is as close to a genius as anyone working in Hollywood today and deserves all the accolades coming his way but I am unconvinced that this movie will be a huge commercial success. At best I anticipate ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ level of business (which delisted at $130.67), whilst at the other end I predict half that. Either way I can see us going long this one and hoping that the Oscar buzz and word of mouth will see it make a reasonable return for the fund.

It just remains for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Happy hunting,

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