Thursday, February 12, 1998

The NOAH fund is reborn as a Cyberbot!! It seems that even before HSX had a chance to announce the official birth of the NOAH fund on today’s HSX main page, young Noah had given up on his desire to manage the Fund. Whilst fishing for another trader to manage this fund, MaxBroker enticed Dan “danobot” Krovich of HSJ to the job. Dan was “Trader X”, last at #5 on the YTD leaderboard, and is one of the more experienced and thoughtful traders associated with HSX. Many of you will have read his excellent posts on TT and columns at the Hollywood Stock Journal, and perhaps used his handy chart “The Skinny” at HSJ. So the NOAH Fund will be rechristined the ROBOT Fund in honor of Dano. Max has suggested an initial float of 100,000 shares at H$100 each, which would restrict the proportion of your portfolio that you can load up on (5,000 shares @ H$100 = H$500,000). It has also been suggested that the earnings of ROBOT be a proportion of the actual performance of the fund. Thus, if Dano’s portfolio rises by 10%, then ROBOT might rise by 5%, representing a 50% gain relative to him. The exact details remain to be hashed out, and you should stay tuned to the HSX main page for updates on this. But the bottom line is that you cannot simply hitch your whole financial wagon to Dano, as you can neither put all your cash there, nor will it realize the gains of Dano’s own portfolio. But it will perform well, and represents a better place for your money if you are unsure of what to buy, need to go on vacation, etc, than the money market account. Whether it performs better than sticking your money into something like GODZI remains to be seen.

My take on this – I think it seems like a reasonable idea for many traders under certain situations.

Finally I’d like to say a special thank-you to Gigi and Bruce Barker for some wonderful, albeit not HSX-related, conversations on WBS recently. In a discussion about the future of U.S. relations with Iran, Gigi made the point that the U.S. and Iran are keen to develop ties to promote exploration of the Caspian Sea oil reserves. The next day there was a big front page article with maps in the Chicago Tribune saying exactly that. See – not everything we chat about is worthless in the real world! Of course, Max has expressed the view that HSX represents a microcosm of the world economy, thus one might expect that our recent discussion about Middle East politics might be a prelude to dramatic changes in HSX. Could be that MIB2 will be set in the Middle East. “Now look closely at this light I hold before you, Saddam…”! Truth is stranger than fiction…:) After all, the central premise of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger was based on real events during WWII, when the British surrounded Corsica, where the Vichy French gold reserves were then stored, and proposed to flood the world gold market with it if the Americans didn’t make lend-lease available to them. This would devalue the dollar and send the U.S. back into the Depression. This was a quiet ploy by the Brits, probably with the President’s full approval, to put pressure on the Senate to sign off on lend-lease before Pearl Harbor forced the U.S. into the war. Ian Fleming, who worked for British intelligence during the war, knew of this escapade, and derived the plot of Goldfinger from real life. In the HSX version, Bruce and Heather Barker will be robed in studio castoff clothing from BBROS and sent to Iraq to shine tiny little lights in Saddam’s face, to make him forget he’s the leader of the country. In the final scene, he is seen driving a cab in New York and complaining about the price of gas and pollution in the atmosphere……:)

Good luck, and Happy Trading.

Tuesday, February 17, 1998

Those of you who had the forsight (or lack of faith in the intellect of America) to hold WDDNG have been amply rewarded by the adjustment. Pray pity me kind madam and sir and spend your newfound fortune in my shop…! But beware of buying into any long-term positions on Oscar bonds – they may deceive thee. Max had made it clear that he feels the Oscar bond prices have risen a little too high, too soon before the ceremony. Heed thee his most noble words:

“It is conceivable that at any time during the next several weeks the seer of cyberspace, knower of all that is sacrosanct about the holy dial tone, may decide that prices have gotten unacceptably inflationary – prompting an interest rate hike. Ouch!” “..it pays to think through market conditions and place your bets according to what you think the next trend will be instead of trying to figure out how to play the last trend. The traders who play the trends do the best.”

And what, pray tell, might that trend be? Clearly we may be headed for a hike in the interest rates, which I gather will take place once a month. Exactly when the first change in interest rates takes place is not yet clear. But be prepared for announcements coming down the road.

New Oscar Bonds Announced What to do with your newfound wealth from WDDNG? HSX has announced that bonds will be issued for those Oscar nominated stars who did not already have existing bonds. These will be offered as IPOs today, and will be issued at 5:00PM PST tomorrow (Wednesday). Traders have already begun a massive selloff of many of their moviestock holdings, partly to accommodate the costs of picking up these new bonds, and perhaps also in response to the announcement of changes in the interest rate.Some traders I know have actually begun to move most of their holdings into cash to protect against the next violent act by the VS Twins.

Today’s new offerings of Oscar« bond nominees taken from the HSX announcement are:

• Robert Duvall (RDUVA) — best actor, “The Apostle”
• Peter Fonda (PFOND) — best actor, “Ulee’s Gold”
• Helena Bonham Carter (HBCAR) — best actress, “The Wings of the Dove”
• Julie Christie (JCHRI) — best actress, “Afterglow”
• Judi Dench (JDENC) — best actress, “Mrs. Brown”
• Robert Forster (RFORS) — best supporting actor, “Jackie Brown”
• Greg Kinnear (GKINN) — best supporting actor, “As Good As It Gets”
• Julianne Moore (JMOOR) — best supporting actress, “Boogie Nights”
• Gloria Stuart (GSTUA) — best supporting actress, “Titanic”

You will only be able to pick one bond for purchase as an IPO. My prediction is that there will be a massive rise in the price of these bonds as soon as they are offered for general purchase tomorrow. I have chosen to sell off 40% of my movie stock positions into cash in preparation for the Gold Rush tomorrow. It almost doesn’t matter which bonds you buy – they will all see a rise, but I’m inclined towards the more obvious favorites for Oscars: RDUVA, PFOND, HBCAR, JDENC and GSTUA. After holding these for several days, and selecting the secondary offering on MNIRN later in the week, I’ll probably sell them off to reassert my previous positions in movie stocks, which hopefully will remain depressed in price following the shift into these bonds.

Towards that end, I have sold all but a radar stock (100 shares) of many of my holdings in preparation for tomorrow. My portfolio crashed 6% or so in the last 10 hours thanks to the stock selloff and commissions, but is still somewhat robust. Feel free to have a peek at my portfolio, and Happy Trading!

Wednesday, February 18, 1998

The Oscar Stampede!!

As if the announcement of the offering of new Oscar nominated bonds wasn’t enough to get you excited and up for a little trading today, HSX has now offered options in three categories. The options will be made available for purchase at 2:30 PM PST today, to be followed by the new bond offering at 5:30 PM PST. This took me by surprise, I must admit, and I have responded by selling off more movie stocks (HUSH and WIDLT) to garner the extra cash to cover these. Otherwise, my portfolio looks pretty much the same as it did yesterday (see column below), with further slippage in the percentile due to the continued selloff of stocks.What options are being offered? Here are the options that are being offered for trading today, reprinted from MacDaddy’s column. Note that you can only purchase up to 10K of each one, as with any other option.

Best Picture

• “As Good As It Gets” (BPASG)
• “The Full Monty” (BPFUL)
• “Good Will Hunting” (BPGOO)
• “L.A. Confidential” (BPLAC)
• “Titanic” (BPTIT) 

Best Director
• James Cameron, “Titanic”(BDTIT)
• Peter Cattaneo, “The Full Monty” (BDFUL)
• Gus Van Sant, “Good Will Hunting” (BDGOO)
• Curtis Hanson, “L.A. Confidential” (BDLAC)
• Atom Egoyan, “The Sweet Hereafter” (BDSWE) 

Best Screenplay
• Mark Andrus and James L. Brooks, “As Good As It Gets” (BSASG)
• Paul Thomas Anderson, “Boogie Nights” (BSBOO)
• Woody Allen, “Deconstructing Harry” (BSDEC)
• Simon Beaufoy, “The Full Monty” (BSFUL)
• Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, “Good Will Hunting” (BSGOO) 

What options should you buy? It depends on your pocketbook, but buy you must. The prices of these options initially will be H$10, and will be worth H$50 should the nominee win. Their value will doubtless rise steeply after the initial offering, unless HSX turns the volatility down (ahh… no fun!). Quite where they will end up come Oscar time, who can predict, but if they get anywhere near H$50 – sell. Myself, I shall endeavor, the HSX server notwithsatnding, to max out on BPTIT, BDTIT and BSBOO, which seem like obvious winners, and several others as well, conserving cash of course for the bond feeding frenzy to follow.

My dilemma I have to fly to Toronto tomorrow (USA wins gold in ice hockey – MUAHAHAAAA! O.K., so the guys got killed by Canada…:) to consult with colleagues at the University of Toronto until Sunday afternoon. We are jointly constructing a mathematical model (Monte Carlo simulation to the experts among you) of transmission at a giant synapse in the brain. Sound exciting? Gets me off… But it means that I will not be in Internet contact for nearly 4 days. What’s my dilemma? Well, having bought these bonds and options, do I ride them until Sunday? Should I hold on to any of the openers this weekend? The answer I have chosen to both is yes. Yes, I’ll hold the bonds and options until Sunday and pray like hell they don’t crash in value in the interim, and yes, I’m going to hold onto 15K of SNSLS, because I think it will do considerably better than it’s current price suggests. Mind you, I don’t know the screen count yet! Your choice come Saturday morning will have that luxury. But I would suggest you consider picking some up while it’s so cheap and hanging on – seems a good bet if it gets around1500 screens. OSCAR and PALME I’m less enthusiastic about, given the lack of screen count data at present. If OSCAR “gets good screens” – buy and hold for dear life!! It’s the only decent romance out there, part from TITAN. Forget GREAT – it should have been titled “No Expectations”.

Tip of the Day This actually came from Kevin Mathers in a conversation on WBS (thanks Kev!)- BORRW is currently trading at 11.75, but made 6.07M in it’s opening last weekend (not counting Monday). This would yield a de-list estimate of 17.6 (with a 2.9 multiplier). For the targeted demographics I doubt it will be unduely affected by coming openers, so BORRW is currently major arb IMHO. To those who doubt the wisdom of holding SNSLS this weekend, I say: SOULF!! I believe this may see a lot of action with pimply teenagers of all shades and get a significant African-American push also, as there’s not much else out there for either group now. Happy Trading, and fasten your seatbelt this afternoon!

Monday, February 23, 1998

MacDaddy has announced the availability of yet another cluster of Oscar options, this time for best adapted screenplay. These will be issued today at 1:30 PM PST and the same rules apply for these as for other Oscar-related options. This means they will initially be priced at H$10 each and will de-list for H$50 if they win, or not a bent HSX penny if they loose. This is the same gamble you have to make with all the other Oscar options out there now. And the nominees for best adapted screenplay are (Trav tears envelope, dressed in whatever was lying on the floor in the dark when he got up that morning – dirty rugby shorts, leather bra, sleeping cat, and last month’s Sunday Chicago Tribune): 

• Paul Attanasio, “Donnie Brasco” (BADON)
• Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson, “L.A. Confidential” (BALAC)
• Atom Egoyan, “The Sweet Hereafter” (BASWE)
• Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, “Wag the Dog” (BAWAG)
• Hossein Amini, “The Wings of the Dove” (BAWIN)

Now I’m no expert on the best adapted screenplay category (or anything else, for that matter), but the strategy here for the HSX trader is breathtakingly simple – BUY, BUY, BUY! If you’re short of cash, stick with what you might suspect will be the ‘biggies’ (maybe BALAC, BASWE, BAWAG), but to me they all look like contenders, and I’ll endeavor to pick some of each up. Notice also that IPOs for “South Park” (SOUTH) and “Rugrats” (RGRTS) will be offered today. That means that as soon as they are available for trading – BUY! I will guarantee you that SOUTH in particular will shoot like a missile up in price, as all the South Park addicts will predict a huge hit with this one.

A SNSLS weekend And how did you fare over the weekend? I went into the weekend holding 50K of SNSLS at 15.00 and was out of town to boot. By some miracle I managed to sell it off as soon as I came back and basically break even. It could have been a disaster! On my way home from the airport I picked up a new 56K modem, and in the process of hooking it up managed to wipe all my modem connection data. For 24 hours I was out of contact with HSX, and SNSLS settled to an amazing low. Whew! I admit that I was wrong about the popularity of SNSLS, it was certainly no SOULF!!! Fortunately, I held no PALME. By getting out of SNSLS fast, I actually managed to slip up the YTD leaderboard a couple more notches and break the 300% barrier, but have slid back since then as people seem to be taking profits from the Oscar bonds to get ready for the new options issue.

What to do now? My recommendation for the next few days is to ride the obvious trends. These include:

• Buy the options coming out this afternoon. They should be good to ride for a couple of days at least. Then prune down the ones you feel less certain about and reinvest in other areas. I’d recommend selling off some existing Oscar bonds for this wave.
• Select the SOUTH option as an IPO and buy it up like crazy when it starts trading on Wednesday.
• Pick up the secondary offers on MRNIC and NEWTN at least on Thursday and buy them like crazy on Friday. No portfolio should be complete without these two.

A Challenge from kat? kat at Mali’s has issued a challenge to me in a recent column to mention her in some context in each of my columns this week. Boy, is the little kitty starved for affection, or what? *giggle* Come on, let’s all put a bowl of milk outside of our portfolios for her! One challenge deserves another, and here is my challenge to kat….:) Somewhere on the HSB&R site is a time-dated message I placed on Saturday (2/21/98) from Toronto that is accessible to anyone from the outside. If she can find it, then I owe her a virtual bunch of flowers. Now don’t cheat and tell her… Let the little kitty have fun…:) They look so cute the way they scamper about looking for hidden things to play with…

But if you find where I have hidden the message “you found me kat” before she does, then I will send you a free virtual hat just like the one that I am wearing here. Heck, I’ll even pay for the electrons required for delivery!

Now stop reading this nonsense and get back and buy some options!!! Happy Trading!

Monday, February 9, 1998 – Singing them Blues?

Looks like this weekend was no great surprise to most traders, with BBROS and REPLK both getting downward adjustments. Perhaps the main surprise was how badly BBROS performed, getting adjusted down to 18.25. Boy, am I glad I sold it off when it was around 38! Hopefully unlike Mr. Hub, you didn’t hold BBROS over the weekend and end up black and blue as a result! This weekend also witnessed some of the random insanities that seem to plague HSX. Let’s go through just a few of them.

The NOAH FundThe greatest of insanities to my mind was the suggestion by Max for the creation of a NOAH Fund. For those of you who may not know the history of this, Noah was a young columnist at Mali’s imfamous for his bad trading advice. He recently claimed to be giving up the game, and flamed the movie board with calls for people to quit. On WBS chat Max tried to encourage him to return to the game, and suggested a fund in his name as a means towards this goal. The fund would be based on the performance of his H$20M+ portfolio. Gee, you could place your hard earned H$ in the hands of a chap with a proven record of bad decisions! Hmm…. does this sound like the kind of thing you’d want to do in real life, let alone in a virtual market? I think not. Even Noah confessed on WBS that he thiought it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t resist the ego trip of it. Selat has proposed a vote on the idea – head on over to the voting booth at Mali’s, and you can cast your own vote on this issue. My, doesn’t the game continue to be exciting! My personal take on this is that Max was just jerking people’s chains, so I wouldn’t take it too seriously – I actually find the whole thing quite hilarious!

BBROS LinkA second absurdity that appeared this weekend was the link on the mainpage of HSX to a post by a trader promoting BBROS. Here’s a film that bombed in it’s opening and has to go up against TITAN on Valentine’s Day and sci fi fare such as SPHER, and HSX link to a positive article on it, encouraging newbies to buy in. Go figure. I notice that this link has been quickly removed this morning.

OUTOF Investigation Denise Fine at HSX announced that trading in OUTOF would be halted pending an investigation into possible manipulation of this stock, since it lept over four points in a day. There must be more to this, since HSX-promoted stocks frequently make such large daily gains. Being a mug, I hitched 10K of my wagon to this stock and bought in at 9.00, and it was halted at 9.25. When I came into work and checked my portfolio, this had dropped to 7.75 thanks to a massive selloff as soon as it was unhalted, contributing to a 10% drop in my portfolio’s value overnight. What gives? No explanation from HSX as to what the problem was, and this stock will undoubtably rollercoaster for a bit. My advice – get out until it drops to around 5.00, then buy back in. Take the loss for now, and sell now to avoid further losses – you can make profits from OUTOF later.

Good News The Oscar nominations are coming up, and many people are licking their chops in anticipation of the trading in Oscar-related bonds. Head on over to Chuck the Bond King’s columns for a detailed analysis of the potential buys. The massive drop in the value of many movie stocks currently is doubtless due to a sell off to buy into potential Oscar winners, and Chuck’s column from last Thursday is an excellent guide to your choices.

So what to buy, and what to avoid? Well, I don’t see any great deals out there in the very near future. Certainly stocks like TRSHW and MNIRN are still somewhat underpriced, and there are little sleepers like SMALL lurking. There’s also money yet in QUEST, and people seem to be flocking to MULAN, despite its low intrinsic value. But many obvious money makers like USMRS are already overpriced. At it’s current price, now is probably also the time to bail out of SPHER. People appear to be pumping their dough into stocks like GODZI, LOSTI, MIB2, STRK9, ARMAG, LTHLW, SVPRI etc simply because they can’t figure out what else to buy that won’t encumber risk. Remember though, that if an expensive stock like GODZI goes up 4 pts in a day, you’ve made considerably less proportional gain than you would for a film like QUEST that might make a 1.5 pt gain. After taking a painful hit with the crash of SNSLS recently, I have chosen to restructure my portfolio in a “wide bandwidth” configuration, selecting a spectrum of investments, most of which appear to be doing reasonably well, or can be expected to rebound soon. SNSLS should rebound soon, and I will probably move cash back into that over the course of the week, and buy back into OSCAR soon also.

Well, that’s the meanderings of the Chitown Trader for today. Good luck, Happy Trading, and I hope you weren’t holding BBROS over the weekend!

Tip of the Day Have a look at another Chitown traders HSX page. Aaron, a frequent poster of late on the movie board, has set up his assessment of a wide range of the coming films that you might find useful.

Wednesday, February 4, 1998 – OSCAR and Lucinda

As promised, I’ll spend a little time here evaluating OSCAR. I am personally rather found of OSCAR, not so much as a stock recommendation but as a film to see if you like romances. I understand that this goes wide Feb 20th and is now in limited release. It’s playing at 600 N. Michigan currently, for Chitown locals. It’s a romance based on Peter Carey’s novel of the same name (Oscar and Lucinda). Of the book Angela Carter of the Machester Guardian wrote “Daring, original, intense and bizarre, Oscar and Lucinda is a brilliant achievement – a moving love story and an historical tour de force that is also powerfully contemporary” “..a novel of extraordinary richness, complexity and strength… It fills me with a wild, savage envy, and no novelist could say fairer than that“. It has also been compared to Dickens, and Peter Porter of the Daily Telegraph commented “[it].. is a little like the best Australian movie ever made, except that it is a magnificent novel in its own right – Carey’s finest achievement to date.” Oscar is an Englishman with an addiction for gambling of all forms, and a missionary zeal, and Lucinda is a headstrong woman in Australia who throws herself into business, partly to avoid the distractions of unwanted (and inequal) men. Much of the book follows the characters in their separate lives until Oscar arrives in Australia. The two are pretty wild characters and what ensues is…. well I haven’t got that far in the book yet!

In terms of it’s stock potential, it was last at 8.00, having risen over the last few days. And yes, I have 50K of this for now. It’s principal competition, assuming it gets 650+ screens, is PALME and SNSLS, with WDDNG in its second week. It stars Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett in the lead roles and directed by Gilliam Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, Mrs. Soffel, Little Women), who launched the acting career of one of my personal favorites, Judy Davis (she was incredible in Children of the Revolution). This definitely seems the best date flick out at the time, but again, it’s distribution is very uncertain now. Proceed with caution! Incidentally, if you go to their site (OSCAR), you can enter a contest.

Caveat Not eveyone is as enthusiastic as I about this film. If you check out Dan Krovich’s The Skinny at HSJ, he predicts that this will not go wide and estimates a de-list in the 2-3 range. So purchase at your own risk! Clearly I have a different take on this film:)

Pilgrim’s Progress. The HSX server was moved last weekend with the intent to improve a number of logistic issues including speed. Let us all pray that the driving skills of Les Buggs were up to par, and that this results in real speed enhancements. When I think of this road trip by the HSX Server, in addition to thoughts of Chevy Chase, I am reminded of the opening lines of a poem by Caroline Norton (1808-1876).

I do not love thee! – no! I do not love thee! And yet when though art absent I am sad;And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,

Happy journeys, Oh most beloved and cantankerous HSX server!! And Happy Trading.

Tuesday, February 3, 1998 – A GREAT weekend?

The column that I had intended to post today got lost in the ether during transfer from home to work. So this will be relatively short. Stay tuned to this channel for an assessment of OSCAR in the next column. The weekend saw the unexpectedly good performance of GREAT which got an upward adjustment. Next weekend sees the opening of REPLK and BBROS. I was holding a lot of these, but before and after the de-lists yesterday traders evidently realized they had hit their ceilings and the prices have tumbled somewhat. I sold off all of mine and collected my GOODW de-list cash. Where did the money go? Well, as things stand now the coming openers appear in the ballpark of their expected values, so there is little obvious profit to be made there. One can therefore look back at potential arb, or forward to future stocks. I went in both directions. FALLE looks like the best current arb opportunity, with a probable de-list at 24-25, and a current price of 23.25. Slim, but something there. In looking forward, one simply cannot deny that the “name brand” stocks, as Max has referred to them, are doing well, with GODZI and XFILE racing neck and neck at the moment to top the list of Market Movers. Four other stocks which I think have the potential to do well that are currently underpriced are MNIRN, QUEST, TRSHW and OSCAR, and this is primarily where most of my money went. MNIRN is currently rising fast, and both QUEST and TRSHW are making decent gains.

OSCAR, however, is moving slowly and is currently priced at 6.50. I will deal with this film in more detail in the next column, but for now suffice it to say that this represents something of a gamble. It is currently in limited release and scheduled to go wide later this month. It will be the only good romantic film at the time, but the big question is: will it really go wide, and on how many screens. SWEPT was also a superb romance but never went wide, partly because of the strong competition during it’s release. OSCAR looks to me to be a more likely candidate for the date flick of it’s era than WDDNG – how many women will want to endure Adam Sandler, after all, and will not be up against films of the caliber of TITAN, GOODW, WAGDG, etc. If it gets the screens, it will take off, and is a steal at this price. If it doesn’t get the screens, the losses won’t be great, since the money made so far will be included in the de-list. At present, Bruce Nash’s Numbers for OSCAR indicate a per screen average for last weekend of $2,906 – respectable, given the lack of general advertising so far, and comparable to DESMS and DEEPR, which have had a lot of advertising. I have loaded up on 50K of OSCAR. Yes, I’m plugging this stock, not to improve my own portfolio (!), but for the reasons given above. It’s a gamble alright, but a fairly risk-free one, IMHO.

My picks for the moment therefore are: MNIRN (with LDCAP, how can it loose?), TRSHW (Jim Carey? Say no more), QUEST and OSCAR (Ralph Fiennes and superb direction by Gillian Armstrong to boot), with due attention to GODZI and XFILE. The local bond junkies are also keen on JGOOD at present, as he currently has a U rating and has two films coming out. Feel free to have a peek at my portfolio. It took a big hit from the fall of BBROS and REPLK and the commissions required to realign my positions. “I’ll be back”!! Good luck, and Happy Trading!!

Tuesday, January 20, 1998 – ASGOD De-List Day, ‘98′

For those of you out there in HSX Land who have sunk their second mortgage into arb in ASGOD, this should de-list today. What to do with that money, and any dollars you may have tied up in the more marginal arb opportunities? One thing to consider at this stage is to invest pennies in the options that are currently available. Consider your options There are a number of very appealing options out there at the present which appear severely undervalued and are currently the realm of the penny stock surfers. Some of those which I personally consider excellent buys are:

REPKB The Replacement Killer $10 Call. This opens February 6th against a relatively field in BBROS and GINGE. The price has been bouncing around anywhere between .02 and .77 over the last few days. I got my 10K for .02 – lucky boy.

LOSPF The Lost in Space $30 Put. Lost in Space is due out April 3rd and initial reactions to trailers of this T.V. retread have been weak. What are the odds of it making $30M on the opening weekend? They look slim. This was going for 3.00 and will probably still be a safe buy at $5-7.

PRILB The Primary Colors $10 Call. Primary Colors is due out March 20th and has received good buzz so far. Up against Night Watch and The Mighty that weekend, it seems like a good buy at it’s current price of 1.16.

EYECC The Eyes Wide Shut $15 Call. Pinning down a release date for this film has been like chasing a wet bar of soap for quite a while. Nevertheless, EYECC is currently at 1.25 and is a speculators market. Tucking it away in a fat portfolio would be a good long-term investment for little initial outlay at this price.

Two other films with $5 options available are Burn Hollywood Burn and The Horsewhisperer. The Burn Hollywood Burn $5 Call (BRN-C) is currently at $1.00 and this film, due out February 27th, looks as though it may make a good showing of the opening weekend with the plethora of stars. Both options for The Horsewhisperer at currently priced at .25 and would be a safe buy until the release date approaches on May 15th.

These are some of the options you may wish to consider, in addition to loading up on GODZI! Goodness knows why anyone with a small portfolio would want to do that, since one could recycle the same dollars several times before GODZI opens and make far more profit. Each to his/her own… Happy Trading!

Monday, January 19, 1998 – After the Dust has Settled!!

So how did y’all do during the opening week’s Gold Rush? It was certainly a good start to the weekend for me. After committing 75% of my portfolio to the bonds, selling them just as they came off the adjustment pipeline, and buying back into stocks, I found myself sitting at number 11 on the first leaderboad of 1998. My only regret was not buying into the bonds sooner with complete commitment. Commitment, that reoccurring deficit in my life….:) Mind you, I’ve been dropping like a brick on the LB ever since, thanks to the strategy I took going into the weekend of hanging onto ASGOD and PHANT.

Now, while Sterling Wolfe correctly points out in his Guest Column that we shouldn’t be getting too mushy with HSX about how smoothly the bond adjustments went last week, as this should be the norm, not the exception, I’d personally like to say how pleased I am. Progress in the right direction should be rewarded. Good job. Besides, I made pots of dough:)

Whether you committed to the bonds which adjusted last Thursday, and whether or not you started with a reset account will wholly set the stage for your opening this year. If you did both, you should have been catapulated up the standings with a superb beginning for the year. A little like breaking out of the pack into the lead group after the first lap of the Indy 500. But what next? Two common strategies going into the weekend seem to have been either to bulk up on those stocks due for de-list tomorrow (PSTMN, AMERW, AMIST, ASGOD, JACKI, MAGOO), or to accept that there were not great arb opportunities in these and to concentrate on buying either or both penny stocks to reap the big percentages when they jump from, say, 0.25 to 1.00, or pick up the long-term biggies like GODZI and LTHLW. Both pennies and GODZI and LTHLW saw gains over the weekend, with a big fall in PHANT to10.00 and ASGOD still trading below it’s ABO. Despite the crash of PHANT, of which I have a solid 50K, and the slide of ASGOD, which I have almost maxed on, my own portfolio didn’t completely crash. Why? Because significant money is still with ASGOD to a large extent. Furthermore, PHANT will be up against SPICE and SWEPT next weekend. SPICE speaks for itself – if you’re over 12 and have a pulse, you won’t be going. SWEPT, with Kathy Bates and Ian McKellan, is a sort of 19th Century version of ‘Misery’ by all accounts, with Ian McKellan being shipwrecked into the ample arms of KBATE. I really don’t think that these films will compete effectively with PHANT, which, while it may have poor legs due to weak word of mouth, should easily make more than twice what it is selling for now. Don’t worry, with 50K in hand, if I’m wrong – I shall pay for my mistake! Ach so. Up against zee wall…..

 What to do now? The de-list does not take place until tomorrow, because of MLK Day. There was still a little arb left in ASGOD, but the others look a bit lean. I am hanging onto ASGOD and PHANT, and looking ahead with the rest of the cash, with an eye on BBROS and The Wedding Singer. The latter looks obviously aimed at the coattails of MYBST, with Adam Sandler singing (God help us). The trailer got good audience reaction though and will probably have an excellent opening weekend. Another decent medium range investment is REPLK, and my personal favorite coming up, OSCAR, based on the Peter Carey novel of the same name. Sometimes you just have to play a hunch, and this is mine. GREAT will get some action, but it looks helpless as a concept to me, and the audience reaction to trailers so far has been weak. This is no ROMYA for 98.

Tip of the Day Check out EF’s movie release schedule at Mali’s. “EFILNIKUFESIN” (spell it backwards), otherwise known as Bill, has compiled a good schedule for film releases relevant to HSX. This is a superb resource and a key to picking the medium-range investments. Good job – EF. Finally, don’t forget to cast your Oscar predictions! And here is a peek at my current portfolio, for which HSBR will surely award me the hat above for my first successful manipulation of the market by driving up the price of PHANT with this column (this is a joke, doh!). Happy Trading.

Thursday, January 15, 1998 – Bond Adjustment Day, ‘98′

Well, the day has arrived, folks. That’s right – time to make sure you are too busy to be disturbed at 2:30PM PST…. If you’ve somehow forgotten it, that’s when the bond adjustments should be going through. If by some reason you haven’t remembered, but feel frisky today, go get ‘em NOW! Read the columns by Curtis “Blue Duck” Edmonds and Tom “The Human Computer” Miller (*g*) for advice. I thought that I was going to be in a meeting then, so I neglected to buy up any bonds yesterday. This morning, however, one of those lucky little influenza viruses stuck, and I somehow found my self free…! So I pillaged my movie stocks, selling off all or most of the GREAT, DECON, ASGOD, PHANT and FALLE I was holding, to pick up KBATE, KWINS, BPAXT and THATC. This is the sort of gamble that makes HSX both fun and terrorizing! If the gamble pays off, I’ll manage to get in and sell as they adjust, and leap back (flush with nice crispy new HSX dollar bills) into the stocks I sold. Of course, if the gamble doesn’t pay off (remember KALLE, etc.), then my goose will be cooked for sure (insert Valley girl accent). It’s been a bumpy couple of days on the old exchange. My account managed to get up to 28.88% before plunging all the way down to 18% as people sold off stocks to get into the bonds. Now if only I’d known I’d have the flu earlier, he thinks – doh! Fortunately, some kind folks out there started a buy back of PHANT and Blues Brothers 2000 before I started buying the bonds. My sincere thanks.. Yes, I chose the Blues Brothers IPO over The Wedding Singer for two reasons. Firstly, I think it may have broader appeal. Now I know some of you out there suspect that The Wedding singer may be the next ROMYA, but I’m less convinced. Second, as a Chicagoan, I really have no choice! Heck, I take the underground parkway every night (known locally as The Emerald City) in which they filmed the car chase in the original film and in The French Connection, I believe. If I didn’t pick up the IPO, who knows what might happen.

The other big news of the day is the wonderful e-mail that Max circulated to HSXers. Well, it seems some of them rated it – I found a copy laying around the office here, but Max excluded mois from the list. Must be something Selat said… Max welcomed us all (read: “welcomed the new players”) to the New and Improved HSX. So far today, I was reminded all too often of the Old HSX by such familiar phrases as “document contains no data“, looooong waiting times, and the new but soon to be famous “Due to heavy trading, the Exchange is temporarily unavailable. We will be back in operation as soon as possible.” The image here is in honor of The New HSX. Yes, I know that I said in a previous column that I wouldn’t whine, but as the adjustment deadline approaches, I certainly couldn’t feel like this was a good sign. With any luck, the heavy trading and other errors were associated with lunch time breaks on the West Coast, and with a LOT more luck, they won’t be back to sell off the bonds when I’m on. What are the odds? ROFL.

I received an e-mail from a genuine newbie (recruited by me, not NY Times fallout), asking me for advice and telling me of his buying experiences. He seemed to be pleased to have made it up to 9%, but was making three classic mistakes I remember oh so well: 1. He bought bonds in stars not slated for adjustment (but he thought were *good actors*), 2. He bought some long-term investments like STRK9, and 3. He bought stock in films that he heard would be *good*, because the book was. No, I’m not talking about SPHER, but SNOWF. This is a classic series of mistakes in my view, which seem to make perfect sense when you first start trading. However, remember, this is an exchange, and good acting is of no consequence – it’s the bottom line, the Almighty Hollywood Dollar. Only two things are important here, as in any other market: (1) what is the perceived value of a holding before release, i.e., what would other traders pay for it. And (2) what will the North American movie going public pay to see in the month after release? New players are strongly recommended to check out Fulltime’s most excellent FAQs at Mali’s. Click here for enlightenment. I sure wish I had those available when I was new – great job, FT. End of sermon:) Must get back and sweat it out waiting for the adjustments. Finally, a hearty congratulations to Chris Butler of HSX for taking first place on the LB (insider trading, or what *g*!!), and to Six Gun Sara for ignoring BOX for so long that she actually is in first place there. Hmmm….a new strategy?! Happy trading!