Broke People Just Aren’t As Excited By Crappy Movies As They Used To Be
by ilene - September 1st, 2010 1:52 am
Broke People Just Aren’t As Excited By Crappy Movies As They Used To Be
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Those who know JDA know that if there’s one thing I am not into (Bernanke aside), it’s movies. Don’t bother making movie references that every other 20-something American female should know because chances are I genuinely have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The only reason I’ve seen Star Wars is because I was engaged to a movie nut who insisted I partake in the classics (yeah he may have been a bit of a nerd on top of it). Odds are I nodded off after the first 20 minutes and if I managed to stay awake through Clint Eastwood marathons, it was out of love and certainly not because I actually wanted to watch any of them.
That being said, is it all surprising that movie-goers stayed home this summer? Please! We’re in the middle of a f*#king recession for Christ’s sake, if you’ve been unemployed for 99 weeks you can’t afford Netflix, let alone $20 a pop for some crap 3D flick. Ironically I got in two movies this summer (the Jr Jr Deputy is lucky I love him enough to pay for and – worse! – sit through a movie every now and then) but hey, I still make money and don’t have a house I can’t afford to worry about.
Summer movie attendance fell to the lowest level since 1997, while soaring ticket prices produced record revenue for Hollywood studios and theater owners.
The number of tickets sold from the first weekend of May through the U.S. Labor Day holiday is expected to drop 2.6 percent to 552 million, Hollywood.com Box-Office said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. That would be the lowest attendance since summer moviegoers bought 540.3 million tickets in 1997.
“The movies just didn’t excite people the way they needed to,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com Box-Office, said in an interview. “When you raise prices and perceive that quality goes down, you have a major problem.”
Yeah whatever, I wasn’t watching movies in 1997 either. Good for you, America, don’t you dare set foot in a theater again until they at least start pumping out better crap than every Rob Schneider movie ever made.
 Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
 del.icio.us
|
|
WILL HOLLYWOOD GO THE WAY OF ENRON? DERIVATIVES COME TO THE MOVIES
by ilene - May 4th, 2010 1:30 pm
Arguably, the Hollywood human casino will give derivative traders the incentive and means to play with people’s lives very directly. So will they put their unproductive energies into destroying the hopes and dreams of others? If economic (recent) history tells us anything, they will. Max Keiser, who developed the virtual forerunner to the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) computer technology, predicts that if his technology is approved for use with real money, Hollywood will go the way of Enron and Lehman within two years. – Ilene
WILL HOLLYWOOD GO THE WAY OF ENRON? DERIVATIVES COME TO THE MOVIES
Courtesy of Ellen Brown, at Web of Debt
As if attacks from paparazzi and star-crazed fans weren’t enough, Hollywood stars may soon have a literal price put on their heads by investors in the Cantor Exchange, a real-money trading platform where people can bet on the gross profits of upcoming movies. Sales of The Dark Knight skyrocketed after Heath Ledger died unexpectedly, and so did sales after the deaths of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Will greed-driven investors now be laying in wait for the stars of movies they have bet on?
The Cantor Exchange (CE) is based on a virtual trading platform called the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), a web-based, multiplayer simulation in which players buy and sell “shares” of actors, directors, upcoming films, and film-related options. The difference is that where the HSX uses virtual money, CE will turn the game into a real casino using real dollars.
On April 21, Cantor Exchange reported that it had just received regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees futures exchanges. “This is a significant step forward in achieving our ultimate goal,” it said in a letter, “which is to launch a market in Domestic Box Office Receipt Contracts.”
Having “contracts” out on movies and movie stars, however, has an ominous ring; and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) apparently doesn’t like the sound of it. The Cantor letter said that its tentative launch date of April 22 was being delayed because the MPAA and others “raised concerns about the economic purpose of this market and its usefulness as a hedging vehicle.”
The legitimate hedgers, the moviemakers and equity holders with a real financial interest to protect, don’t want it. But Cantor is pushing forward, because gambling is big business and there are…
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
del.icio.us
|
|
What Can Movies Tell You About the Stock Market?
by ilene - March 15th, 2010 6:13 pm
What Can Movies Tell You About the Stock Market?
Courtesy of Elliott Wave International
The following article is adapted from a special report on "Popular Culture and the Stock Market" published by Robert Prechter, founder and CEO of the technical analysis and research firm Elliott Wave International. Although originally published in 1985, "Popular Culture and the Stock Market" is so timeless and relevant that USA Today covered its insights in a recent Nov. 2009 article. For the rest of this revealing 50-page report, download it for free here.
This year’s Academy Awards gave us movies about war (The Hurt Locker), football (The Blind Side), country music (Crazy Heart) and going native (Avatar), but nowhere did we see a horror movie nominated. In fact, it looks like Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the most recent to be nominated in 2008, for art direction (which it won), costume design and best actor, although the last one to win major awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Actress was The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.
Whether horror films win Academy Awards or not, they tell an interesting story about mass psychology. Research here at Elliott Wave International shows that horror films proliferate during bear markets, whereas upbeat, sweet-natured Disney movies show up during bull markets. Since the Dow has been in a bear-market rally for a year, now is not the time for horror films to dominate the movie theaters. But their time will come again.
In the meantime, to catch up on why all kinds of pop culture — including fashion, art, movies and music — can help to explain the markets, take a few minutes to read a piece called Popular Culture and the Stock Market, which Bob Prechter wrote in 1985. Here’s an excerpt about horror movies as a sample.
* * * * *
From Popular Culture and the Stock Market by Bob Prechter
While musicals, adventures, and comedies weave into the pattern, one particularly clear example of correlation with the stock market is provided by horror movies. Horror movies descended upon the American scene in 1930-1933, the years the Dow Jones Industrials collapsed. Five classic horror films were all produced in less than three short years. Frankenstein and Dracula premiered in 1931, in the middle of the great bear market. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde played in 1932, the bear market bottom year and the only year that a horror film
…
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
del.icio.us
|
|
Popular Culture and the Stock Market
by ilene - December 11th, 2009 6:51 pm
Socionomics is premised on the theory that "social mood drives financial, macroeconomic and political behavior, in contrast to the conventional notion that such events drive social mood." Here is an interesting article on socionomics which focuses on social mood and the stock market. (see also, Global Unrest Continues to Grow, Hyperinflation First, Then Global War). – Ilene
Popular Culture and the Stock Market
By Robert Prechter, courtesy of Elliott Wave International
The following article is adapted from a special report on "Popular Culture and the Stock Market" published by Robert Prechter, founder and CEO of the technical analysis and research firm Elliott Wave International. Although originally published in 1985, "Popular Culture and the Stock Market" is so timeless and relevant that USA Today covered its insights in a recent Nov. 2009 article. For the rest of this revealing 50-page report, download it for free here.
Both a study of the stock market and a study of trends in popular attitudes support the conclusion that the movement of aggregate stock prices is a direct recording of mood and mood change within the investment community, and by extension, within the society at large. It is clear that extremes in popular cultural trends coincide with extremes in stock prices, since they peak and trough coincidentally in their reflection of the popular mood. The stock market is the best place to study mood change because it is the only field of mass behavior where specific, detailed, and voluminous numerical data exists. It was only with such data that R.N. Elliott was able to discover the Wave Principle, which reveals that mass mood changes are natural, rhythmic and precise. The stock market is literally a drawing of how the scales of mass mood are tipping. A decline indicates an increasing ‘negative’ mood on balance, and an advance indicates an increasing ‘positive’ mood on balance.
Trends in music, movies, fashion, literature, television, popular philosophy, sports, dance, mores, sexual identity, family life, campus activities, politics and poetry all reflect the prevailing mood, sometimes in subtle ways. Noticeable changes in slower-moving mediums such as the movie industry more readily reveal changes in larger degrees of trend, such as the Cycle. More sensitive mediums such as television change quickly enough to reflect changes in the Primary trends of popular mood. Intermediate and Minor trends are likely paralleled by current song hits, which…
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
del.icio.us
|
|
Mickey Mouse Brings Merger Monday Back
by ilene - August 31st, 2009 1:53 pm
Mickey Mouse Brings Merger Monday Back
Courtesy of John Carney at Clusterstock
First we had the $5.5 billion dollar deal between Baker Hughes and BJ Services. Now Disney picks up Marvel. It’s suddenly feeling like the old days when Monday mornings meant merger announcements. That’s $9.5 billion in deal flow today.
No details yet on the banks working the deals or the financing involved.
From the Associated Press:
Walt Disney Co. says it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the Disney family.
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters.
It said the boards of Disney and Marvel have both approved the transaction, but it requires an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.
See Also:
Disney To Acquire Marvel In $4 Billion Deal (DIS, MVL)
Disney (DIS) announced this morning it was acquiring Marvel Entertainment (MVL) for about $4 billion, or $50 per Marvel share. The acquisition price represents a 30% premium to Marvel’s current share price.
Operationally Marvel appears to be a good fit for Disney. Disney’s distribution could quickly exploit Marvel’s strong licensing business. In addition, Marvel has recently gotten into making its own productions (versus just licensing its characters for films), which has helped drive better-than-expected results the past few quarters.
And also:
Disney Should Buy Electronic Arts, Says Analyst (DIS, ERTS)
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
del.icio.us
|
|
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.