Playing & Trading Strategy

There seem to be several different categories as far as I can tell: Openers with dates for this year, openers with dates for next year, openers with dates for 2013, wrapped movies that are sure to be released but no dates so far, wrapped movies in release hell, movies in production, movies in active development, and movies in non-active development as far as we know.  And there are many more sub-categories (summer releases, fall releases, dump releases, prestige releases etc).

- As we were coming out of the winter holidays and the new rule changes here, in general, most releases for 2011 were going up.  This was in part because of the new rules, in part because people tend to be optimistic about the new year in general and the prospects of movies more specifically. After the 100k share max was adopted, things started to settle down, and as I pointed out previously, the dire box office performance at the beginning of this year foreshadowed the downward trend of this year's stocks. I think that, even if the box office performed ok in the first quarter, we still would've seen a downward trend in stocks coming into Spring and Summer...it just seems to be the human instinct, to overvalue with starry eyes things in the not-too-distant future (summer blockbusters), only to readjust  as things come into clearer focus in the near-present.  And it could very well be that these stocks will then become UNDERvalued in short time. This is the cyclical/seasonal/long-term trend of this game.

- Movies with release dates for next year and 2013 are trending up, because in general, those movies are big tentpoles. The smaller movies that will fill out the rest of the calendar have yet to be given release dates. Logically, people will chase the tentpoles and drive those prices up. It's up to you to decide when/if those stocks will experience the cyclical/seasonal swing in the other direction and switch positions accordingly.

-Movies in production or active development or wrapped with a good chance of getting a date will generally be stagnant with small up or down ticks. Traders are holding these, waiting for further news.

- The rest of the categories will often times experience a long, slow bleed. Even movies in the above categories could experience this, because traders will be individually divesting themselves of long positions in order to invest in something else. Even if it's just one trader a day choosing to sell off his/her holdings in a stock, over the course of a week or a month, you could see a 4-20% drop in a stock that has had no news or no impetus other than market movement.

-Also realize that, more often than not, the short-term performance stocks such as IPOs and news-item stocks eventually fall into the slow-bleed category. A week or 2 or 3, they no longer have their sparkly shine, and people forget why they played the yo-yo game with them, and so they just sit there, slowly bleeding out as people sell off to invest in the latest short-termers. The trick is to realize when a short-termer has become a long-termer, and situate your holding accordingly.

- Short term stocks, anything more than 2% gain and you're gravy, but be prepared to switch position even if you haven't hit 2% if you fear that the up-down switch is imminent.  Long term stocks, if you see that after a month of holding something in development and it's only given you 5% gain, it isn't worth holding onto anymore...there are better movers out there.

-And of course there are StarBonds and OWs and warrant and other things to play with.