AMC Entertainment Holding Inc

No End to Whiplash in Meme Stocks, Crypto and More

Drew Austin, an entrepreneur and investor, invested heavily in cryptocurrencies and NFTs, including digital horses, digital sports cards and some digital art. He took a “substantial liquidity hit” when cryptocurrency prices crashed in May, he said. But he is not cashing out, because he believes these new assets are the future. Still, the volatility can be stressful. Unlike a stock exchange, these newer markets never close.

“There are nights when I go to bed and I think, Please, God, China, don’t mess this up,” he said using stronger language. “It’s 24/7. It never stops.”

Bitcoin’s volatile month — dropping by around 65 percent in May, recovering some and then falling further this week — has not swayed investor enthusiasm. A recent survey by The Ascent, a financial services ratings site, showed that Generation Z investors viewed cryptocurrencies as slightly less risky than individual stocks.

But they’re learning that wild price swings can happen over a single tweet. In February and March, when Elon Musk and his company, Tesla, embraced Bitcoin, its price soared. In May, when Mr. Musk tweeted that Tesla would not accept Bitcoin payments over concerns with its environment impact, its price dropped.

It jumped again this week when Mr. Musk suggested on Twitter that Tesla would again accept Bitcoin someday. (His tweets have also propelled Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency based on a meme about a Shiba Inu.)

The sustained appetite for risky bets has fueled companies, like Robinhood, that enable customers to trade stocks, options and cryptocurrencies. In January, Robinhood’s role in the trading of meme stocks landed it in hot water with Congress, state regulators and its customers.

The attention only turbocharged Robinhood’s growth: Revenue more than tripled in the first three months of 2021 compared with the same period last year. Robinhood plans to go public in the coming months.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

‘It’s Magic What We Do.’ Movie Theaters Get Starry-Eyed Once More.

Cinemark, for instance, lost $208 million in the first quarter of 2021. Yet, “Today I am pleased to report that we are now actively on the road to recovery,” the company’s chief executive, Mark Zoradi, said during an earnings call.

There are reasons for moviegoers to be excited, too. “Fast and Furious 9” debuts on June 25. (It opens in China this weekend.) The musical “In the Heights,” adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway show, will open June 11. Marvel’s “Black Widow” comes out on July 9, while Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” will open on July 30. (Both will also be immediately available on Disney+ for an additional price, a detail left out of Wednesday’s presentation.)

According to the exhibition research firm National Research Group, as of Monday some 70 percent of moviegoers are comfortable to returning to the theater. The box office for April hit $190 million, up 300 percent since February. That’s a welcome relief to the South African director Neill Blomkamp, whose new horror film “Demonic” from the indie outfit IFC will debut only in theaters at the end of August.

“This brings me joy,” he said in a video message. “I want people to be terrified in a darkened theater.”

One benefit of the pandemic has been a more flexible approach to how films are released. For years, exhibitors demanded roughly 72 to 90 days of exclusive theatrical exhibition before a film could become available on a streaming service or through premium video-on-demand. The pandemic has collapsed that, with the new window of exclusivity sitting at 45 days.

For Ms. Taylor, who joined Alamo at the end of April 2020, after more than two years as president and chief operating officer of United Planet Fitness Partners, the antiquated relationship between the theater chains and the studios has surprised her, even during a pandemic.

“Studios 1,000 percent control the product,” she said. “And, as an exhibitionist you have no control. That’s really difficult.”

View Source

How Small Market Investors Are Being Wooed by Companies

That has prompted a strategy adjustment. In addition to spending time communicating with analysts whose “buy” or “sell” ratings on the stock can move its price, Mr. Schreiber said, he has made a point of doing interviews on podcasts, websites and YouTube programs popular with retail investors.

“I think that they are, today, far more influential on, and command far more following in terms of stock buying or selling power than the mighty Goldman Sachs does,” Mr. Schreiber said. “And we’ve seen that in our own stock.”

Academic research suggests that over the longer term, it can be a competitive advantage for a company to have a patient base of investors who understand and believe in its strategy. Such a steady foundation makes it possible for executives to focus on longer-term strategic goals, rather than meeting the short-term metrics often dictated by Wall Street analysts, said Mr. Cunningham of George Washington University Law School.

Take Amazon. Its share price kept rising over the years, despite its skimpy and unpredictable profits and widespread skepticism from Wall Street. The individual shareholders who held Amazon stock bought into the vision of the founder, Jeff Bezos, and saw no problem with Amazon recycling its enormous cash flows back into the company rather than paying dividends. Many of those shareholders are now rich; someone who bought $1,000 worth of Amazon shares at the start of 2000 would be sitting on more than $4.3 million today.

Shares of Tesla, too, have exploded in recent years — a victory for its base of cultish followers, who believed in the company’s prospects despite years of losses. Over the past five years, Tesla shares have gained more than 1,300 percent, creating $640 billion in market wealth.

While some companies are pursuing the loyalty of small shareholders, others are pursuing their money. Several companies whose stocks climbed during January’s “meme stock” boom have taken advantage of the demand to issue new shares, turning trading enthusiasm into actual cash for the company. (Previously issued shares that are bought and sold in the open market don’t generate any new money for companies themselves.)

View Source

After Pandemic, Film Industry’s Hollywood Ending May Have to Wait

LOS ANGELES — What awaits Hollywood on the other side of the pandemic?

As vaccines have rolled out around the world, many film executives and theater operators have been predicting — hoping, praying — that a huge surge of ticket buying awaits. They hope the masses, desperate to get out of their homes (and tired of watching television), will begin to pour into cinemas as soon as they feel safe from the coronavirus and big movies begin to repopulate the marquees.

It could happen.

But early box office results indicate a messier recovery, with moviegoer tastes potentially shifting — particularly in China, now the No. 1 cinema market in the world — and behind-the-scenes spats between studios and theaters crimping film availability. Some traditional studios have started to prioritize streaming, to pushback from multiplex operators. “It’s going to take some time for things to settle out,” said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a movie consultancy.

Over the weekend, for instance, the Walt Disney Company released “Raya and the Last Dragon,” a rapturously reviewed animated adventure that cost an estimated $150 million to make. Featuring the vocal talents of Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina, “Raya and the Last Dragon” played in 2,045 theaters in North America, including some in New York City, where state officials allowed chains like AMC to resume operations (at 25 percent capacity) for the first time in a year.

refused to book it. Cinemark and Disney sparred over licensing terms, with Cinemark, citing the simultaneous streaming debut, insisting on a discount, and Disney giving little. “We are making near-term booking decisions on a discrete, film-by-film basis, focusing on the long-term benefit of exhibitors, studios and moviegoers,” Cinemark said in a statement.

Cinemark and other theater chains struck a deal with Warner to play “Tom & Jerry,” even though it was simultaneously available — with no upcharge — to HBO Max subscribers.

Disney declined to comment.

Muddying the situation further, it is possible that “Raya and the Last Dragon” did blockbuster business on Disney+. Only Disney knows. The company does not disclose financial figures for its premium access releases.

Jonathan Cohen, director of content and communications for ListenFirst, a social media analytics company, said there was “a high level of interest” in the PG film, which generated 84,897 posts on Twitter on Friday and Saturday. (But not as high as the PG-13 “Coming 2 America,” which became available to anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription on Friday and generated 243,769 tweets.)

100 million subscribers worldwide. “I think the consumer is probably more impatient than they’ve ever been before,” Mr. Chapek said at a Morgan Stanley conference last week. “They’ve had the luxury of an entire year of getting titles at home, pretty much when they want them. And so I’m not sure there’s going back.”

box office records, even with capacity limits, an encouraging sign for a strong global rebound.

But “Raya” collected just $8.4 million in China over its first three days, or roughly half of what non-franchise Disney films like “Zootopia” and “Moana” managed before the pandemic. Even “Tom & Jerry” took in $12.2 million last month.

What happened? It was unclear to box office analysts on Sunday, with some guessing that the film’s subject matter could have been a hindrance (dragons can be surprisingly tricky) and others pointing to a possible hangover from “Mulan,” which bombed in China in September after a filming location created problems. For others, the chilly reception added to fears that the Chinese market has shifted radically, with moviegoers now preferring local films like “Detective Chinatown 3” and “Hi, Mom” over American imports. “Wonder Woman 1984” (Warner Bros.) has taken in $25.5 million in China since its release on Dec. 18, about 70 percent less than its series predecessor collected in summer 2017.

Disney’s standard Sunday box office statement noted that “Raya and the Last Dragon” performed better in China than two recent Pixar films: “Onward” arrived to about $2.8 million in ticket sales in August, and “Soul” collected $5.5 million in December.

Over the past year, as the pandemic has dragged on, Hollywood has pushed back the releases of dozens of films and rerouted others to streaming services. Studios have cited one primary reason: The No. 1 box office market in North America — New York City and its immediate suburbs — has remained closed. The gradual reopening of cinemas in the area, which began on Friday, immediately emboldened studios, with Sony speeding up the release of “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” and Paramount giving “A Quiet Place Part II” similar treatment.