I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Don't expect this to be a daily thing, I put daily, but I really meant news of the day. Also, not financial advice.

Quick major news

• Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO in 21Q3.
• $GOOG EPS at $22,30 with revenues at $56,90B.
• $AMZN EPS at $14,09 with revenues at $125,6B
• Silver went down 8%, Gamestop went down 60%, AMC went down 41,2%. Short ladder quadra-witching attack?
• Pfizer estimates that its anti-covid vaccine will generate 15 billion dollars in revenue in the year 2021.
• The banking sector is going up a lot thanks to rising U.S. government bond yields.

What to look for tomorrow

• ECB Monetary Policy Statement
• Major Earnings report : Paypal, Qualcomm and Ebay

My thoughts

New retail money and its consequences on the overall market
This whole squeezy thing made a lot of new people aware of the stock market. Most made money. I therefore predict that there's going to be a lot of new money in the market. That leads to 2 things :

• The market as a whole will go up
• The market will have much more volatility the more unemployed people there is (the more quarantined people there is also).

The first point is rather obvious in my opinion but the second one needs a little bit of explaining. It's based on the Boredom Markets Hypothesis from Matt Levine. For short : people are bored, people want fun, people see the stock market as a fun casino, people trade.
Add to those 2 points the fact that retail investors actually beat index funds during the first quarantine in 2020. This is a recipe for success for the overall market :

1. Retail investors are bored and trade fun stocks.
2. Retail investors actually made money.
3. They get their jobs back and they no longer have time to follow the market.
4. They put their money, earnings and salary into boring ETFs or blue chips stocks.

I've said basically this on this post about my 100k yolo. A little update on this : I really bought at the peak and after those great first days of the week, I barely broke even. So that sucks! Also, I might change for SPY calls as I think s&p500 will have a similar growth as Nasdaq but the SPY calls are giving better returns than Nasdaq calls for the same % change of the underlying.
Apple vs Facebook
So, hum... Facebook, with 96% of its users using the mobile app, decided to declare war against the biggest smartphone manufacturer? That's going to go well... To be fair, they don't have that much choice when the big smartphone manufacturer decides to make it very transparent what data you have access to and how much data you collect.
So, as more young people realize the extend of the data collected by Facebook, and since they're not really big fans of the app anyway, they will most probably stop using it for other more fun social medias. If they can't attract new young people, that's the death of Facebook app's growth.
Add to that more and more controversies on the whole Whatsapp-Facebook merge, more and more people more aware of alternative apps, and probably some regulations coming in this year or 2022, this is not great for Facebook at all.
But for Apple? How is Apple going down? Let's take the insane worst-case scenario for apple that Facebook stops support for Iphones. You think people will stop using Iphones just to have a social media that they've been using just as an addictive habit?
And for ther other apps in the Apple Store profiting of data collecting, I'm sure they know how lucrative the Apple market is as those customers that spend the most amount of money on phones will most likely spend the most amount of money on other things. Paid apps will do well. Ads there will do extremely well. They just need to be less shady about how they collect their data. And if you stop support for your Apple app just because Apple shows how you collect your users' data, this will not be very good PR for you my guy.
So yes, Facebook is in a lot of trouble and seems to be slowly going downhill but it's not a new trend. Apple is just the one hurting them the most at the moment. So my long-term thesis (2 or 3 years) is that Facebook will be hurt by this with a maximum upside of a stock price being flat and apple is going to do really great in the coming years.
Bye!

Hi everyone, there's been a lot of news about Loop Insights ($MTRX.V) and I know a couple of friends who are/thinking of investing in it too, so I decided to do a little DD -- pulled out whatever data I could find about the company, had the company mail me their investor package, read/listened to company releases, and dug into it. I thought I'd share my findings and my outlook, in case this is helpful for anyone thinking of investing.
I like Loop Insights’ mission. I like the markets in general that it’s targeting. Its technicals are often cited as a reason to shovel more and more money into the stock while it still trades in dimes. I agree there’s momentum with this one, so I’m inclined to say this is a short- to mid- term play, but there are serious concerns about its long-term prospects. As with all businesses, execution trumps ideation. This is what’s got me stuck about Loop.
(1) Its cash burn has been somewhere near 14 million a year. That’s not how much money they raised. That's just how much they've been spending per year. For a start-up of just a couple years and one, as far as I can tell, whose products are mainly software, this screams lack of financial discipline.
(2) Because of (1), it’s now fairly deep into negative shareholder equity territory. This means its liabilities exceed its assets. Hypothetically, if you were to liquidate the entire company, it still wouldn’t be enough to offset losses. This doesn’t usually happen, but it does forewarn about the company’s next steps in response to this situation (below).
(3) Because of (1) and (2), it desperately needs more cash in the eight figures, which raises the possibility of doing so through more debt or equity.
(4) I’m a little concerned about how the management’s been handling the cash burn conundrum. The CEO and COO salaries combined amount to roughly $450,000. I can’t stress how incredibly rich this is for (a) a start-up of just a couple years, (b) most of all when said start-up is this far in the red.
It’s short-sighted and financially imprudent to siphon out half a million each year from a pre-revenue, early-stage start-up, adding more to its existing short-term cash flow stress, when it’s already well-past its cash runway and skidding on concrete. The CEO of Loop is pretty respectable, but he's a CEO in another, much larger company (Fobisuite Technologies Inc), so it reads as if Loop is just a pet project/cash cow for him (which might be why he feels sucking the cash out of Loop at such a critical time is acceptable).
Add to this the fact that the leadership are all 50+ year old business executives, none of whom are programmers or engineers. It’s important to have in-house tech so you avoid outsourcing or commissioning as much of the heavy-lifting in early development and design as you possibly can and lower your cash burn (1).
(5) Loop Insights only JUST filed provisional patents and trademark registries for its products (contactless solutions and contact tracing software) early this month in October (https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/05/2103339/0/en/Loop-Insights-Files-Provisional-Patents-And-Trademark-Registries-For-Venue-Tracing-And-Contactless-Solution-Applications-In-Wake-Of-Growing-Demand.html).
That’s a really slow pace, given that these are their main (and only) products and which they’ve been attempting to sell to clients for the past quarter already. Patent and trademark registries themselves also take a year or two on average to pan out, after which Loop may or may not even receive them (even barring the possibility of larger competitors blitzing the market ahead of this date). We won’t find out till 2021-2022, but at the moment, they don’t even own the name of their products.
(6) It’s pre-revenue and the company’s financial data is pretty hard to find. Without an inkling about how much this company can even sell, let alone stand to profit, you can’t put a multiple on it or apply any kind of valuation model. The leadership has been fairly conservative as well about providing concrete projections for investors to go on.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the forward guidance and market outlook that Loop does provide in the investor information package that they mail out has highly unrealistic valuations of their future market. “31.88 trillion from Brick and Mortar Retail”? “614.5 billion from Sports & Entertainment”?? “565.4billion from Casino Gaming”??? It’s cringey that these whole-market valuations are what Loop pitches to investors as its potential market, as if it could capture even a dime, let alone the full dollar, of every dollar a consumer spends on a shirt and a beer just because consumers use their payment system.
(7) It’s fighting on too many fronts at once. It intends to create its own independent cloud server (Loop Cloud), its own payment system (Fobi), and contactless NFC reader (SmarTap). Any meaningful disruption to any of these markets could easily cost tens and hundreds of millions. To attempt to compete in all of them threatens to bleed your company dry before you even start.
And as Apple learned in the adolescent days of Apple Pay, it’s easier, faster, and significantly less costly to collaborate and tap into an existing distribution network like Mastercard’s, especially in a saturated market – rather than compete against it.
How would Fobi and SmarTap capture any ground from a payments systems market already dominated by big players like Mastercard, Visa, AXP, or even up-and-coming growth players like Square and PayPal?
At this point in the game, how would Loop Cloud steal market share from an already-saturated space lorded over by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or even young bucks like Cloudflare, Salesforce, etc? It cost Alibaba close to a billion dollars to crack the US cloud market.
How would SmarTap add any value to retailers or consumers? It seems SmarTap has a hardware component that allows it to contact trace people and, at the moment, is being pitched to retailers and consumers. I'm not too clear on how it works, but from what I gather, the software attached to it then publishes information about what kinds of people (in terms of their exposure to previously identified hotspots) have been flowing in and out of retail stores. SmarTap seems like a pitch for government clients, not retailers or consumers.
How would retailers benefit from adding contact tracing? Retailers benefit more from not having any contact tracing information about their stores published, so that consumers can give them the benefit of the doubt and still visit their stores. Ignorance is bliss.
How could you convince consumers to use this network service? I’ve received pitches from network service startups in the past, so I know a little about this space and I can say adoption and churn rates truly can’t be underestimated (and they’re ridiculously expensive to keep low) for anything attempting to be a new network service. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to convince more and more people (think network effect here) to adopt a new technology/network service. Again, it'll cost an astronomical sum to gain and keep any traction in the network service space (and the payment system space and the Cloud space, let alone all of them).
All in all, I think Loop has potential, and I congratulate anyone who’s made buck on the recent momentum. But as a long-term investment, it has an incredible amount of work cut out for it that could well take years to iron out, provided it doesn’t bleed out on the way there. Thanks for reading.
EDIT: lol @ the snowflakes screaming shorter. Unclench. No company's ever gone bankrupt or hit the moon because of a Reddit post.
I have no intention to short Loop (or any company whose market cap is so small no analyst has even bothered to measure its beta).
Everything I wrote is a publicly available fact from Yahoo Finance, Loop's own materials, and public filings. As I said, I think Loop has potential, but its poor financial health deserves attention -- and some questioning as to how it got here and where it wants to go. That's all. GLTA.

Using the monies deducted from our account to pay bills and staff, as well as the flow of time in game, I calculated how much each staff member makes in addition to how much money we will be losing on such items.
This rundown will, for the most part be presented in table format and will be separated business by business (with the exception of MC businesses as all their costs are rolled into one.
​
MEASURE OF IN GAME TIME:
This table shows the flow of time in game against real time. All measures of time beyond this table will be referring to in game time. Additionally, all currencies shown below should be read as in game currency.

IN GAME TIME	REAL WORLD TIME
1 Day	48 minutes
1 Week	5.6 hours
1 Month	22.4 hours
1 Year	11.2 days

​
MECHANIC:
We pay the mechanic $1,000 a day. His income is as follows:

• Weekly Salary = $7,000
• Monthly Salary = $28,000
• Annual Salary = $336,000

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT:
The executive assistant earns $300 a day. His/Her income is as follows:

• Weekly Salary = $2,100
• Monthly Salary = $8,400
• Annual Salary = $100,800

PENTHOUSE STAFF & UTILITIES:
$1,300.00 a day is spent on this item.

• Weekly Expenditure = $9,100
• Monthly Expenditure = $36,400
• Annual Expenditure = $436,800

ARCADE STAFF AND UTILITIES:
The arcade is a bit more complex in estimating as this business generates legitimate profit. As a result the table below will show expenditure as well as gross and net profit. THESE FIGURES ONLY CATER FOR A FULLY UPGRADED ARCADE WITH ALL MACHINES PURCHASED.

Time	Expenditure	Earnings	Net Earnings
Daily	$500	$5,000	$4,500
Weekly	$3,500	$35,000	$31,500
Monthly	$14,000	$140,000	$126,000
Annual	$168,000	$1,680,000	$1,512,000

Assuming that 25% of expenditure goes to utilities we can estimate our staff ( Wendy and Jimmy) to together earn an estimated $126,000 annually. i.e. $63,000 each.
The underground staff are not included as these members should be paid from the casino heist.
​
NIGHTCLUB STAFF & UTILITIES:
This table regards a fully upgraded nightclub and assumes that the nightclub runs at full popularity continually.

Time	Expenditure	Earnings	Net Earnings
Daily	$2,000	$10,000	$8,000
Weekly	$14,000	$70,000	$56,000
Monthly	$56,000	$280,000	$224,000
Annual	$672,000	$3,360,000	$2,688,000

The nightclub has 14 staff members: 1 bouncer, 1 cashier charging admission, 5 security guards inside, 4 bartenders, the 2 dancers and 1 bathroom attendant. Assuming that 25% of expenditure goes to utilities, and that wages are divided equally, each staff member earns an estimated $36,000 annually.
This does not include Tony Prince, Lazlow or the resident DJ. These members are part of the club but what exactly their wages are is uncertain.
Neither the security underground, nor the warehouse technicians are included as these members should be paid from the illegal ventures.
​
BUNKER STAFF AND UTILITIES:
$9,400 a day is spent on this item

• Weekly Expenditure = $65,800
• Monthly Expenditure = $263,200
• Annual Expenditure = $3,158,400

The fully upgraded bunker hires 11 staff members: 8 manufactures, 2 security guards and 1 mechanic for the MOC and other bunker vehicles.
Assuming that 25% of expenditure goes to utilities, and that wages are paid to the staff in equal amounts, each member of staff earns an estimated $215,345 annually.
​
MC BUSINESSES STAFF AND UTILITIES:
For all 5 fully upgraded MC businesses expenditure is as follows.
Daily Expenditure = $24,000.00
Weekly Expenditure = $168,000.00
Monthly Expenditure = $672,000.00
Annual Expenditure = $8,064,000.00
Altogether, 40 persons are involved in the manufacturing process across the board. While 1 guard is assigned to each business.
Assuming that 25% of expenditure goes to utilities, and that wages are paid to the staff in equal amounts, each member of staff earns an estimated $134,000 annually.
​
TLDR: OVERALL EXPENDITURE
DAILY = $38,500
WEEKLY = $269,500
MONTHLY = $1,078,000
ANNUAL = $12,936,000
(this figure is not a true representation as a player cannot be an MC President and a CEO at the same time)
This estimate assumes:

1. That income taxes, property taxes and corporate taxes are not taken.
2. That all wages are equally split among staff members
3. That 25% of all expenditure accounts for utilities

​
This concludes my fiscal report thank you for your time. The floor is now open for all questions, comments, criticisms etc.

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:

• Observer Rewind - 1987 by SaintRidley
  
• The Complete Wrestling Observer Rewind 1991-2001
  

1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002

NOTE: I mentioned it in the first post of 2002 but a lot of y'all are aware that a few months ago, SaintRidley picked up the Observer Rewind reins after I stopped and started doing his own recaps from the 1980s. Well, he's been doing great work with it and he just finished posting the year of 1987. I went ahead and added it the Previously" section up there. ↑↑↑ Just wanted to make sure to bring it to everyone's attention.

• It's been awhile since we've had major PPVs going head-to-head with each other, but it happened this week when WWA aired it's 2nd ever PPV live from Las Vegas, going head-to-head with PRIDE. Dave recaps the history of head-to-head PPV battles, specifically the WWF vs. Crockett war in the late-80s. How Vince McMahon created Survivor Series specifically to run it in direct competition with Crockett's first ever PPV, Starrcade 87. The resulting loss of needed revenue was a huge reason why Crockett eventually had to sell the company to Ted Turner and, in retrospect, set into motion everything that led to WCW's eventual death last year. He goes on to recap how Royal Rumble was created and aired on free TV to go head-to-head with Crockett's next PPV attempt, Bunkhouse Stampede. Then Crockett responded by creating the first Clash of the Champions and airing it against Wrestlemania IV. Not sure PRIDE vs. WWA is up there in the same league as that PPV battle. Which, to be fair, Dave admits it's not the same thing.
  
• Anyway, the PRIDE show was among the greatest events of all time, one of the very few times in the history of the Observer that a show got a unanimous 100% thumbs up vote on the reader poll. It aired in Japan live and in the U.S. on a bit of a delay, with the matches edited in a different order. In Japan, the card was headlined by Vanderlei Silva vs. former UWFI wrestler Kiyoshi Tamura, which was an excellent fight that Silva won. In the U.S., the show was built around Ken Shamrock vs. Don Frye in the main event (in Japan, it aired 3rd from last) and the 2 men had an absolute war that should shut up critics who say both are too old. Shamrock lost a split-decision in a fight that Dave thinks should have legitimately been a draw. (This fight is considered to this day one of the all-time wars in MMA history. An utter slobberknocker. Neither fighter was the same again afterward and Frye has said that the damage Shamrock did to his legs in this fight led to him later getting addicted to painkillers). After the fight, Shamrock went over to ringside and hugged his girlfriend Alicia Webb, who you may remember as Ryan Shamrock. The girl that played his sister in WWF.
  

WATCH: Don Frye vs. Ken Shamrock - PRIDE 19: Bad Blood (2002)

• And then there was WWA. A low-budget, amateur-ish event, marred by bad production and no-shows. Not that the crowd would even know, because most of the lineup was never even announced ahead of time anyway. The scheduled main event of Jeff Jarrett vs. Randy Savage didn't happen because Savage held promoter Andrew McManus up for more money at the last minute. Savage originally had agreed to work the show in exchange for a 30% ownership stake in the company, which was agreed upon. But three days before the show, Savage upped the ante, saying he wanted the 30%, plus an extra $50,000 in cash. At that point, they started haggling back and forth to try to strike some kind of deal. Ownership got pulled off the table and then Savage asked for a flat $250,000 fee to work the show. WWA turned that down and came back with a flat $150,000 offer instead. Savage turned that down and at that point, everything broke down. For what it's worth, a lot of the lower card wrestlers on the show worked for $300. Last second attempts to bring in Sting to save the show didn't work either. Road Dogg was also supposed to appear on the show but couldn't because of legal issues. Word is he got arrested 2 days before the show in Florida on a probation violation. As a result, the PPV was headlined by Jeff Jarrett defending the WWA championship against Brian Christopher.
  
• The whole show was simply an embarrassment. The production was completely minor league and the crowd was totally dead for all these long matches with guys nobody cares about. The in-ring work was fine, but the booking often made no sense, with overbooked three-ways and 6-way undercard matches that ended up being more clusterfuck than match. It was also one of those Russo-type things where the commentary team made endless inside-references that only the hardcore internet fans would get. But then again, this show only drew hardcore internet fans anyway, so why not? They also constantly made reference to WWF, which came across as desperate and sad. In particular, Larry Zbyszko was given the chance to cut a meandering promo, challenging Vince McMahon to a fight over some unspecified grievance from 20 years ago and criticized them for having Chris Jericho as their world champion. Dave thinks Zbyszko was actually angling for a job from WWF by trying to start his own angle and says this promo was basically his job application. And he thinks it was pretty pathetic. Backstage, the disorganization was apparent and most even within the company saw what a mess it was and have already given up on the promotion as a lost cause. Dave said this PPV made it clear that nobody will be challenging WWF anytime soon.
  
• Other notes from the WWA Revolution PPV: yes, in case you're wondering, that Japanese man sitting behind the commentary table all night who very briefly (literally blink and miss it) got involved in the Scott SteineDisco Inferno tussle was indeed NJPW star Hiroyoshi Tenzan and yes, they flew him all the way from Japan (and had him bring his ring gear just in case), only to have him do almost nothing and never be acknowledged on camera. Eric Bischoff was backstage, as a guest of Ernest Miller. Bischoff laughed off any questions about going to WWF but said the ol' "never say never" shtick. The crowd was about 2,800, most of them freebies and they were desperately giving away tickets in the casino before the show. During the first match, the building looked practically empty so they quietly began moving everyone closer to ringside to pack the area around the ring to make it look presentable for TV. Opening 6-way match featuring all the hottest indie stars was a sloppy mess, with too people flying everywhere trying to get their shit in and the cameras missing most of it. Bret Hart came out and cut a long, rambling promo before announcing Brian Christopher was replacing Randy Savage in the main event, to zero crowd response. By the 5th match, people in the crowd could be seen leaving, never to return. Jerry Lynn showed up, interrupting an Eddie Guerrero interview, at which point Dave mentions, oh yeah by the way, the WWF released Jerry Lynn 2 days before the PPV. Considering WWF has been talking about reviving the cruiserweight division after Wrestlemania, Dave doesn't know why they'd get rid of a guy who could be one of the best in the division. Anyway, yeah, this show sucked. Here ya go, enjoy.
  

WATCH: WWA: The Revolution PPV - 2002

• WWF's latest investor conference call took place and wasn't particularly newsworthy, but there's some stuff to note. The new agreement with DirecTV is until August of 2003 and is under the exact same terms they were operating under last year, which means WWF gained nothing while losing an estimated $4.4 million in revenue over the last few PPVs. Following the brand split, WWF plans to run 16 PPVs per year, and increasing the price by an extra $5. Linda McMahon said Wrestlemania 18 has sold 58,000 tickets as of the time of the call, for a record gate of $3.96 million, breaking the record set by last year's WM. Dave goes through all the numbers and for the most part, in comparison to previous quarters, almost everything is down. Which is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention because WWF is clearly on the downswing. Linda also said they're currently interviewing new writers and are hoping to double their writing staff, which Dave thinks is a terrible idea (and time has damn sure proven him correct). Finally, Linda was also asked how the purchase of the WCW library has benefited the company, which Dave thinks is an interesting question since revenues have declined since then and the Invasion angle flopped so hard that it killed any brand value the name "WCW" may have had. Linda talked about the value of the tape library but Dave points out that it's been a year and WWF has done practically nothing with that library (of course, in the end, they found ways to monetize that WCW library and it more than paid for itself).
  
• In his first match as an official member of the AJPW roster, Keiji Muto lost the Triple Crown championship to Toshiaki Kawada in a match nearly a year in the making, before a sold out crowd at Budokan Hall. He hasn't seen it yet, but the match was reported to Dave as a near-classic (he ends up giving it 4.5 stars). The other 2 NJPW stars who jumped ship, Kendo Kashin and Satoshi Kojima, also worked their first official AJPW matches. Kaz Hayashi, formerly a member of Jung Dragons in WCW and who worked in WWF's developmental until asking for his release a few weeks ago, also debuted on the show and will be part of Muto's faction.
  

WATCH: Keiji Muto vs. Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW 2-24-2002

• Obituary time for Swede Hanson, who worked primarily in the Carolinas and had a brief run in the WWF as a cult favorite babyface in the early 80s. Sadly, he passed away in a mental hospital because he had advanced Alzheimer's disease which made it impossible for his family to handle him and they had him put away. Jeez, that's rough. He also had a litany of other health problems. Dave gives an in-depth history of his career in the 60s and 70s as a heel in the Carolinas before talking about the WWF run. Vince Sr. brought him in as a monster heel to challenge Bob Backlund, and Dave thinks someone else must have backed out at the last moment or something. By this time (in 1979), Hanson was well past his prime and hadn't been a major star anywhere in years but he was a big dude and so they brought him in to face Backlund and they actually sold out Madison Square Garden with Backlund vs. Hanson in the main event (though Dave says Bruno Sammartino working the undercard sure didn't hurt). The match sucked and almost immediately after, he became a jobber in the WWF, but Vince Jr, on commentary, just loved to call him "Rawboned Swede Hanson" and the "Rawboned" nickname caught on. Vince said it with such gusto that Hanson briefly became a cult favorite jobber from it and the crowd turned him babyface at damn near 50 years old. It led to a brief career resurgence and him having a small role in the Backlund/Billy Graham feud for the title before he finally faded into oblivion.
  
• Mark Henry won the "world's strongest man" competition at the Arnold Classic bodybuilding and fitness event. Henry has been out of WWF for the past 2 months training for this competition and the training paid off, with Henry capturing first place and making a legitimate viable claim to his "strongest man in the world" moniker. During the event, Henry became the first man in 50 years to cleanly press the 366 pound Apollon wheel weight above his head. In another event, he carried an 800 pound block of bolted together railroad ties up a 40-foot ramp faster than the other competitors. For his victory, Henry won a $75,000 Humvee and some other cash prizes. Over the same weekend, he also won another $1,000 in a contest where he was able to lift an inch dumbbell (which weighs 172 pounds) to his shoulder with one arm. There's a bunch of other weightlifting stuff here, but you might be surprised to find out....I dunno shit about any of this. I got winded lifting pizza to my mouth earlier. Mark Henry strong.
  

WATCH: Mark Henry at the Arnold Classic 2002

• Another obit for former wrestler, promoter, and father of 80s valet Baby Doll, Nick Roberts who died of pancreatic cancer. Once again, a bunch of details and stories about someone I've never heard of in wrestling history that Dave somehow knows everything about. I know I've said it before, but these obituary pieces are some of the greatest reasons for subscribing to the Observer.
  
• Masahiro Chono says he wants to take NJPW in a more serious, realistic direction. No sports entertainment gaga nonsense, they want it to be like a real sports product. So much so that, in his own match with Manabu Nakanishi at the last big NJPW show, Chono wouldn't even bounce off the ropes, saying that it's not credible and no one would do that in a real fight. Ah yes, Inoki's gonna love this.
  
• FMW wrestler Kodo Fuyuki has said he plans to try to keep the promotion running after it was announced it was folding last week. FMW still has 8 shows scheduled for this month and Fuyuki said he plans to try to run them himself and keep the company going (no such luck buddy).
  
• Japan Today, an American newspaper that covers Japanese news daily, had a story on Antonio Inoki battling diabetes. It says he was first diagnosed in 1982, which Dave says is right around the time Inoki's in-ring work dropped off considerably when he lost his stamina. The story said for the last 20 years, Inoki has eaten a ridiculously healthy diet and is in better health now at 59 than he was then at 39.
  
• Dave said he got tons of positive feedback on the debut of RF Video's Ring of Honor promotion in Philadelphia. The show was sold out in advance, was well organized, and had several really good matches. They limited a lot of the mistakes that most indie companies fall victim to, such as too many matches, too many run-ins, too much mic work, too many guys trying to do too much stuff, etc. Steve Corino and CZW announcer Eric Gargiulo did commentary. Eddie Guerrero faced Super Crazy in an excellent match and the main event was a three-way featuring Low-Ki, Christopher Daniels, and American Dragon that Dave has heard rave reviews for. And thus, ROH was born.
  

WATCH: Highlights from ROH's debut show in 2002

• Vic Grimes took the most insane bump of all time at an XPW event before 1,500 fans in Los Angeles. Grimes was facing New Jack in a scaffold match said to be at least twice as high up as the fall Mick Foley took off the Hell in a Cell. The ring below had tables stacked 4-high to break his fall, but Grimes ended up missing most of the tables when New Jack overshot him. Perhaps on purpose. Grimes missed all but the corner tables at the edge of the ring before coming down on the corner turnbuckles. After the bump, they tried to rush fans out of the arena since it was almost 1am and gave many the impression Grimes life was in danger. But he was surprisingly okay and was walking around backstage after, although he was definitely banged up. Grimes was really nervous about the bump earlier in the day, as you might expect and Dave says he's pretty damn lucky he didn't miss the ring because he almost certainly would have died if he took that bump straight to the floor. Elsewhere on the show, there was a match where porn star Lizzy Borden (wife of XPW promoter Rob Black) faced another porn star, Veronica Caine, in a match that was supposed to end only when someone was stripped totally naked. But right before it happened, the lights went out and the women were rushed out of the ring and when fans realized they'd been ripped off, they were so pissed the arena feared a riot. (Anyway, here's the bump and yeah....Grimes very easily could have died from this. No mention from Dave on the fact that New Jack also tazed him before this)

WATCH: Air Grimes goes long

• Shane Douglas is expected to take over as XPW booker when his WCW contract with Time Warner expires next month.
  
• Former WCW journeyman wrestler Chip Minton's primary career was bobsledding. He only wrestled in WCW occasionally while doing that, primarily as a jobber on the C-shows. Minton was part of the US bobsledding team in both the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics and was planning to compete this year, but failed to make the team. Soon after that, he failed a steroid test and has been suspended from the sport for 2 years.
  
• Remember a couple weeks ago, it was mentioned that Roddy Piper was in a car accident but he was playing down how serious it was? Turns out....very serious. Piper suffered 4 broken ribs, one of which punctured his liver and nearly killed him. He also suffered severe back injuries and shattered his ankle. Piper was taken to the hospital and was near death but obviously, he managed to pull through and has still been making all his appearances for XWF in recent days. (Yeah I think in Piper's autobiography, he dedicates the book to the guy who saved his life by rushing him to the hospital and even says he was clinically dead for a few moments. Then again, Piper was like a lot of those old time guys and was prone to exaggeration, so who knows).
  
• Eric Bischoff is teaming up with Mark Burnett, the producer of the hit show Survivor, to produce a MMA reality show called Skien. From Dave's understanding, it will basically be a reality show with K-1 kickboxers leading up to a PPV event. (Here's an article about it from Variety at the time, but this ends up going nowhere).
  

WATCH: Variety article on Eric Bischoff's new reality show

• Notes from Raw: only one thing really notable, they filmed a segment at referee Tim White's bar The Friendly Tap. The bar really is owned by White and WWF pretty much always films angles there when they're in town (Providence, RI). This time, the skit featured the APA going into the bar to drink and the bar was filled by a bunch of gay men and drag queens (played by a bunch of wrestlers from indie promotion Chaotic Wrestling) while the APA guys acted all grossed out by it all. Then Billy and Chuck attacked them. Dave thinks this played on all the typical homophobic stereotypes and he seems pretty irritated by it. Anyway, among the wrestlers from Chaotic were Todd Sinclair (better known now as ROH's senior official), Rich Palladino (ring announcer for Beyond now) and John Walters (indie wrestler and former ROH Pure champion).
  
• Next week's Smackdown hasn't aired yet but it was taped and Dave has details. Notably, this is the episode where Austin chases down the NWO and tries to shoot them with a net gun. Dave says this was a mess, with the gun going off but no net being fired from it and they'll have to fix the whole thing in post-production. It went horribly when they filmed it and it aired for the live crowd and it killed the crowd and basically forced them to improvise on the spot (on one of the Something To Wrestle podcasts, Bruce Prichard tells this story and how frustrated they were with this net gun being a piece of shit). This episode also featured Stephanie yelling at Chris Jericho for getting her the wrong hand lotion and Booker T and Edge feuding over a Japanese shampoo commercial. (Rock/Hogan was great, but man, the build for everything else at Wrestlemania 18 suuuuuucked.)
  
• Prototype won the OVW title from Leviathan at the latest OVW tapings. After the match, they did an angle to set up David Flair as the #1 contender for the title. Prototype's only singles loss in OVW came last week, when Flair beat him, so there ya go (this video covers ALL of that. The FlaiCena match, the Leviathan match, the post-match angle, etc).
  

WATCH: Prototype vs. Leviathan for OVW title - 2002

• Wall Street Journal did an article talking about the decline in Smackdown's ratings, saying they were down 28% from last year and down 42% from the year before that. The article blamed it on Smackdown changing networks. Here's the thing though....it hasn't. Raw changed networks in 2000. Smackdown has been on UPN since its debut. Also, UPN has grown overall in ratings while Smackdown has declined. So....no. It's just because the show sucks now.
  
• Charlie Haas, fresh off returning to the ring and winning the HWA title after the death of his brother, tore his ACL this week. He just had surgery and will be out 4-6 months. Rough few months for that dude.
  
• A Washington newspaper did a story on James Dudley, who you may know as....WWF Hall of Famer James Dudley and little else. On-screen, he's never really done much. But Dave says Dudley started working for Vince Sr. back in the 1940s, when Sr. was a boxing promoter, and was essentially his Vince Sr.'s driver and assistant. Dudley did a lot of odd jobs for the company during those early years, working ticket booths and stuff like that, but to most people, he was just kinda known as Vince Sr.'s limo driver. So when he was indicted into the WWF Hall of Fame a few years ago, it was a pretty controversial decision among a lot of people, given that someone like Bruno Sammartino isn't in, by the company's limo driver is. Anyway, before his death, Vince Sr. made Vince Jr. promise to take care of Dudley and keep him on the payroll. So for the last 18 years or so, even though he doesn't work for the company, Vince McMahon has continued to pay him a salary. He also bought him a new car as a gift some years back.
  
• Billy and Chuck's recent tag team title win makes Billy Gunn the most decorated tag team wrestler in WWF history, as he's now held the tag titles 9 times (3 as part of the Smoking Gunns, 5 as part of New Age Outlaws, and now once with he and Chuck). The previous record was Mick Foley, with 8. (to the best of my research, if we're only talking WWF/WWE tag title reigns, that record is now held by Edge).
  
• USA Network CEO Barry Diller took part in a lecture at Syracuse University and talked about losing the WWF to TNN. When asked why it happened, he responded, "Because I'm a dope." He said he didn't fight hard enough to keep the WWF and admitted the loss hurt, but also said it may have been the best thing for them in the long-run because pro wrestling doesn't really fit the direction they're planning to take the network. He said wrestling fans came for wrestling and left immediately after it was over and there was never any cross-over fans who stuck around to watch the next show or anything like that. He said they could never figure out what to connect wrestling to within the rest of their properties.
  
• WWF held a try out camp in Cincinnati and reportedly, nobody was particularly impressive, including AJ Styles. The knock on Styles was that he's average looking and too small. Wrestler Sonny Siaki was said to be the most impressive, but he also rubbed people the wrong way with his attitude so probably not gonna make the cut this time. Matt Morgan, who was on the Tough Enough casting special last season got a tryout and since he has no formal training, he was pretty awful but he's big so Dave seems to think he'll get a chance anyway. The other one they were impressed by was a woman named Erin Bray, who was one of the final 25 picked for the original Tough Enough. But then some other contestants spotted her out on a date with one of the show's judges and they threw a fit, which resulted in Bray not making the final 13. Another wrestler, Travis Tomko, is a guy who has worked some indies and is a former bodyguard for Limp Bizkit ("Tomko, gimme a beat." "No.")
  
• Rock was a presenter at the NAACP Awards and Dave thinks he looked pretty great for a guy who was almost murdered in an ambulance by the NWO a few days earlier. Cheeky Dave is just the best.
  
• Speaking of, Dave throws in a random paragraph to backhandedly shit on Kevin Nash. For years, people in the business joked that Lex Luger made the most money with the least ability or drawing power of anyone ever in wrestling. Dave says it's gotta be Nash. For example, Nash is not wrestling and is only going to be in Hall's corner for the match at Wrestlemania (his knees really are giving him problems), but he has been promised that he's going to get the same type of payoff as if he was the guy in the match working with Austin in the semi-main event. Not to mention all the huge contracts he signed in WCW, or how he got a huge-by-WWF-standards deal here, plus got Vince to cave to almost all his other demands regarding schedule and bringing back Scott Hall, among other things. (I mean, while Dave is being kind of a dick here, I don't think he's really wrong either. When it comes to top draws in the history of the business, Nash isn't anywhere near even the top 10 or 20. And he's never exactly been a great wrestler. But since the 90s, Nash always managed to make sure he gets PAID like he's in that upper echelon. Nash is one of those very few wrestlers who isn't entranced by the fame or the fake accolades. He treats wrestling for what it is: a business. It's the way they pay their mortgages and buy groceries, just like you and me at our jobs. I love it. I laugh my ass off every time I hear "Brock Lesnar signed a huge new contract to only work 6 matches a year." Good for him. I hope he gets even more money for less dates next year. You should always know your worth and never let your employer take you for anything less. Nash has always been one of the guys to do that and he's probably going to die comfortably in a nice house while these other guys from his era are still clinging to fame at 60 years old doing $300 indie shows on crippled knees. Anyway, that's my soapbox). Dave seems to feel the same way and admits, love him or hate him, you gotta give Nash credit for being one of the smartest guys in the biz.
  
• Fear Factor featuring the Hardyz, Lita, Test, Molly Holly, and Jacquelyn aired this week. First they had to climb up a rope ladder hanging from a helicopter over the river and they all made it up except Jeff Hardy who slipped near the top and fell (knowing Jeff, he probably purposely let go so he could take the big fall for fun). Lita also got eliminated for being the slowest one up the ladder. Next they had to chug a gross drink that included bile, rooster testicals, spleen, and some animal brains all blended together. Molly Holly almost vomited after one sip and was out. Jackie and Matt succeeded. Test refused to even try. So then it came down to Matt vs. Jackie and they had to walk across the tops of high poles and move flags around. Matt Hardy ended up winning the whole thing and won $50,000 for charity.
  

WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 1
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 2
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 3

• Sunday Night Heat is being converted into one of the B-shows like Metal and Jakked. Awhile back, they started airing Heat from the WWF New York restaurant but the production costs of that were high. So in a cost-cutting move, they're just gonna tape dark matches and throw them on Heat the same way they do those other shows, featuring all the nobodies that can't ever get TV time on the main shows.
  
• As mentioned last week, Scott Hall has been taking a drug called Antabuse, which makes him violently sick when he drinks or even smells alcohol. It caused him to get sick after Raw last week when Austin poured beer all over him in a bit after the cameras were off. Hall has said he is clean and has been clean for awhile, except for the incident a couple weeks ago where he fell off the wagon. Others are skeptical and question if Hall only takes his medication on TV days and needless to say, there's some doubt here.
  
• Everywhere he goes, Brian Christopher has been telling people he's coming back to WWF after Wrestlemania, but contrary to what he's saying, Dave says there are zero plans for that (indeed, it does not happen).
  

FRIDAY: More on WWA's PPV disaster, the landscape for any new promotion attempting to start up, WWF huge show in Japan, WWF loses appeal over "WWF" initials, Bret Hart given offer for Wrestlemania 18, and tons more...

NSS busts ex-Yerevan mayor Beglaryan / Money laundering / Property theft

NSS report says: in 2009, Yerevan mayor Beglaryan colluded with Center District officials to embezzle property.
They organized an illegal scheme to donate 4 properties worth $488k, located on "expensive" streets, to an accomplice, who then sold them to Beglaryan's family for pennies.
The properties, in reality, belonged to Beglaryan. He used others to launder and conceal the theft. A felony case is launched.
https://factor.am/277085.html
 
other criminal cases involving Beglaryan
On March/24/2020 we learned that HHK Gagik Beglaryan, a former Transport Minister and Yerevan mayor, was placed on the wanted list and an arrest warrant in-absentia was issued.
At the time, he was charged with embezzling $483k worth property at the expense of a kindergarten. The investigation began after new mayor Hayk Marutyan busted 27 instances of kindergarten embezzlement by the former regime.
 
In another instance, Beglaryan's brother - a public official in charge of Sports Teams Center - gave property to his wife under suspicious circumstances.
His house was also raided as part of a fraud investigation involving North-South highway construction.
https://factor.am/277085.html
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/181189
https://www.reddit.com/armenia/comments/foa22n/mar242020_whats_happening_in_armenia_papers/

Pashinyan's Kotayk trip / Roads and kindergartens / Magic wand / Արամուսի լավ գյազար կիլոն 2,000

Pashinyan: The first kindergarten in 40 years is being built in Aramus village.
Official: // After 2018, they began enforcing tax laws and restaurants began paying taxis. That money is what's paying for this kindergarten. (magic wand)
With population 4,000, Aramus will have a new gas network on several streets. By the end of 2020, the entire village will have gas. \\
 
Lots of lands are still left unused, however. The village is popular with carrot production. There is even a popular song dedicated to Aramus's carrot.
Locals asked Pashinyan to rebuild the road connecting to the neighboring village. "It hasn't been renovated since 1965."
 
PM visited a new greenhouse business. The CEO said they need qualified experts who could earn high salaries. "You don't have to become a lawyer or economist to make a good living. Climate engineers, agricultural and vegetation experts are a hot commodity."
"You have to learn English/Russian even if you do agriculture, though. You'll make a good living if you're a good expert in your field."
https://youtu.be/mAGN1BP5XAE
https://factor.am/277134.html
https://youtu.be/2Ad3W_IPmyw?t=83
https://factor.am/277159.html
https://factor.am/277168.html

Court finds two policemen guilty of embezzlement

On Oct-2018, two cops and their secretary in Ararat were charged with stealing $57k worth funds from their colleagues' salary bonus budget, plus some tax evasion.
Today the court made a guilty verdict.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1025289.html

Policeman rejects a bribe and busts a driver's license buying attempt

The report says: a few months ago, an 18yo man failed his behind the wheel test. He scheduled the second exam but failed again, so he used his friend's help to bribe the policeman in charge of licensing.
The policeman refused the bribe and pressed 3 counts of felony bribery charges. The suspects are told not to leave the country.
https://factor.am/277219.html

Massive property corruption ring is busted / ex-Minister

The report says: several officials stole $2.8m between 2008-2014.
A company wanted to buy a property belonging to Urban Development Ministry. The Minister and other officials organized an illegal process to sell the property for half the price, causing $1.3m in damages.
Similar property transactions were made for the Minister's family members.
The SIS has launched a felony investigation. https://factor.am/277243.html

Tushonka's assets will remain frozen

The court denied a petition by disgraced general Manvel Grigoryan to remove the arrest on his assets. He was charged with various financial crimes.
http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/284156/

BHK chief Tsarukyan's casino hasn't paid the fees

Shangri La casino, the largest in Armenia, didn't pay the licensing fees for 3 months, totaling $2.8m, citing COVID-related issues. The IRS wants the money.
When asked about why they renewed their license despite knowing they wouldn't have clients, the casino said "we wanted to remain open and continue to pay employee salaries."
The IRS had earlier invited them to discuss the issue but they didn't show up. They claimed that not enough time was given for preparations.
https://www.1lurer.am/hy/2020/08/17/ՊԵԿ-ը-1-4-միլիարդ-դրամ-է-պահանջում-Գագիկ-Ծառուկյանի-ընտանիքին-պատկանող-«Օնիրա-քլաբից»/295749

Amulsar & Lydian / Laboratory resumes

Lydian miner: // we're reopening the analytical chemistry lab in Gorayq village which was operating since 2007. It was earlier shut down after illegal activities by environmental activists.
Local youth will be able to learn and work with science.
Armenia will have its first-ever "internationally certified technology of passive treatment for acid rock drainage." (Google Translate) \\
 
Activists gathered in the gated park in front of Parliament building to show support for Amulsar's preservation. The police notified them and the journalists that this area requires a permit for such "protests", and asked them to return after getting one.
Activists from Jermuk will soon hold a car rally to Yerevan.
https://factor.am/277171.html , https://youtu.be/oN7Wi2XJZC4?t=2121 , https://youtu.be/N0uYHWjfSlA

Հերթը հասավ Սոթքին

A group of 200 Geghamasar residents shut down a highway to protest the activities of nearby Sotq mine. They complain that the recent explosions created a cloud of toxic dust.
The mine's representatives agreed to meet the protesters. The highway was opened.
https://factor.am/277132.html , https://factor.am/277206.html

Civil society groups discuss election reforms / Ineligible voters inflating electoral numbers

NGOs held a meeting:
The govt has SECT system that contains information about whether the person is located in Armenia. Since SECT was implemented in certain checkpoints with delays, it doesn't have accurate info about people who left/entered.
Another problem for SECT is caused when the person changes their last name abroad, for example after marriage.
If "Sasun" moves to Russia and writes his name as "Sergey", it'll case a problem.
 
One way to fix the problem with ineligible voters being on voter lists, as it's done in Georgia, is to require a valid ID to keep the person on the list.
These days, expired passports are not accepted for any transaction except for voting. This exception should be removed.
 
This will remove 188,000 people from voter lists.
Inflated numbers cause various problems. It makes it harder to gather enough % votes to add an issue to a ballot.
 
We also need to make sure people are registered to vote in districts where they actually live. This is especially important for provincial elections because local officials have a record of collecting residents from elsewhere to vote in another location.
 
Many people don't want to register their real address as their voting address because they want to hide the fact that they own the new address they live in (tax purposes?).
We must make it clear to the public that these electoral changes have no legal effect on their property ownership issues.
 
Full 2.5 hour video: https://factor.am/277091.html
https://youtu.be/B0ywmPt0ArM
Tags: ##ElectoralReform #Elections #VoterList

Tavush village Aygepar...

.... is being rebuilt after being bombed by Azerbaijan during Tavush Battles. New roofs were installed on several houses.
Photos: https://factor.am/277077.html

Bordering villages to have Smart Barns

Moo. Thirty-four high-tech barns will be built in Gegharquniq's and Vayots Dzor's bordering regions, co-funded by Economy Ministry and the UN.
Up to 70% of the barn's cost can be subsidized. Must have a valid passport and a two-week veterinary training.
http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/284154/

ex-Defense Minister becomes Pashinyan's chief adviser

Vagharshak Harutyunyan was a Lt. General. He was critical of the Kocharyan administration and allegedly played a role against Kocharyan's plans to give a "corridor" to Azerbaijan in Armenia's southern Meghri province.
He was fired by Kocharyan and had his military rank stripped in 2002. He described it as "political persecution".
In 2019, Pashinyan restored his military rank after finding Kocharyan's decision illegal.
Today he was appointed as Pashinyan's adviser.
https://factor.am/277300.html
https://www.azatutyun.am/a/30126601.html
https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1569941.html

After Pashinyan gets grilled by BBC's HARDTalk, Ilham Aliyev next?

HARDTalk invited Pashinyan for confrontational-style Q&A. The show also invited Ilham Aliyev. Will he accept the challenge, too?
An expert is skeptical that Aliyev himself will agree. "The former MFA Mammedyarov was experienced and might have agreed, but the new MFA isn't. They won't risk it."
https://www.panorama.am/en/news/2020/08/18/Ilham-Aliyev-will-not-risk-to-participate-in-BBC%E2%80%99s-HARDtalk-Elibekova/2345519

COVID stats

+145 infected. +8 deaths. 186,661 tested. 5,787 active. 300 serious/critical.
https://factor.am/277093.html

Unemployment during COVID

230,000 unemployed and 1mln employed, said economist Hrant Margaryan. "This year's positive migration balance was a result of borders being closed."
http://arka.am/en/news/society/230_000_unemployed_in_armenia_now_expert_/

COVID testing in airport

Tourism-Armenia Association signed a deal with a COVID testing laboratory to conduct 6-hour tests for tourists visiting Zvartnots airport.
The visitors will get a 50% discount and will receive the results on email. If it's negative, they'll be allowed to exit the quarantine instead of waiting 14 days.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1025282.html

COVID restrictions will be relaxed

Universities will also resume in September. Libraries, museums, theaters can operate under open-air.
TV anchors don't have to wear a mask if they're alone in the room.
Restaurants can perform live music under the open air. The max number of patrons near a table increases from 5 to 8.
https://factor.am/277222.html

Japan issued a $2m grant to Armenia...

....to fight against COVID through equipment purchases.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1025286.html

This 6-year-old kid cooks better than you. Admit it.

Mom found out about an upcoming cooking competition in Goris and registered his 6-year-old son Mher Harutyunyan. He became the youngest participant.
The kid prepared a stuffed fish with a salad and was declared the winner. He won a trip to a cooking show.
"Mher has been helping grandpa and mom in kitchen since the age of 3. His dream is to open a restaurant."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1025247.html

Pashinyan's youngest daughter Arpi was baptized

Video: https://www.facebook.com/nikol.pashinyan/videos/222906089113674/

Internal tourism during the pandemic

With the airports "closed", more people choose hiking and nature adventure, says the Tourism Committee.
Armenia has 11 companies that organize hiking to mountains. They gather 1,000 people every weekend.
Lately, there has been a great interest in rafting and canyoning. The youth also prefers horse riding and biking.
Off-road car travel among a small group is also common. They install tents to take a rest.
High-end hotels are already full for the next month.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1025214.html

A herd of bezoar goats was captured by nature camera

Capra aegagrus live in rocky areas with bushes.
https://youtu.be/ZJnTCoSQ2bM

Belarus: April 2018 or March 2008? / Lukashenko strikes a desperate tone

Context here.
During a speech to his "loyal" factory supporters, people began chanting "leave" at Lukashenko:
https://t.me/nexta_tv/3817
 
He finished the speech with "Thanks. I've said everything. You can keep shouting LEAVE now."
https://youtu.be/2wZb_Y357to&t=19
 
A protester then shouted, "Shoot yourself, officer". Lukashenko approached the man to confront him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edcKH0ksAgs
 
He gave another speech during which he warned the public that unfriendly NATO troops are only 15 minutes away from the borders:
https://youtu.be/R5Ssn2E1J8E?&t=309
 
The desperate man thanked his supporters for gathering in the square for a show of support.
"We built this country together. Who do you wanna give it to? Think hard, Belorussians. What is wrong with you? You've wanted to be called "people" for centuries. End me now, and it'll be the beginning of the end of yours."
https://youtu.be/QvCgC_Ub1Ac?&t=73
 
Aerial view of the size of the protests in Minsk. Half a million marched across the country:
https://youtu.be/f4W7wC2po9M
https://youtu.be/rUxPk_1MdtI?&t=220
 
What angered the public the most was the brutality by the special forces and executions of protesters. Local administrators were confronted and scolded by the angry crowd, who demanded the release of the detained activists.
https://youtu.be/XjZn91kZZEY
 
Doctors went on strike because they weren't allowed to enter jails to treat the thousands of detainees. There are widespread reports of torture. Medics chanted "resign" and "tribunal".
https://youtu.be/ODf4JlGD4RY
 
Journalists noticed a fleet of trucks coming from Russia. They said the trucks look similar to Russian National Guard trucks that often appear during protests in Russia.
https://youtu.be/yGx-DvXx3wU
 
Lukashenko rewarded 300 riot cops for their loyalty.
https://www.azatutyun.am/a/30789869.html
 
You've read 1940 words.

Disclaimer & Terminology

1) The accused are innocent until proven guilty in the court of law, even if they sound guilty.
2) Currency in Armenian ֏ unless specified otherwise.
3) NSS/SIS/SOC = law enforcement agencies. QP = Civil Contract Party. LHK = Bright Armenia Party. BHK = Prosperous Armenia Party. HHK = Republican Party. ARF = Armenian Revolutionary Federation Party
4) ARCHIVE of older posts by Idontknowmuch: PART 1 ; PART 2 ; PART 3 ; PART 4 ; PART 5.
5) ARCHIVE of older posts by Armeniapedia.

Does anyone else think this is pure insanity how it’s gone up 60% since they did the recent stock and debt offering at $18 per share? If PENN had a clue this would happen they never would have done the offering last week. Their own CEO said they have enough cash on hand now to make it through the year with their burn rate of $83m per month. What he failed to mention, and what is written in their 10-K and 10-Q, is that the $83m burn rate is them operating with only a core of 850 employees, all locations closed, and almost no operating expenses when they typically employ around 25,000. Once casinos open up, with social distancing, they should expect half or less of their usual revenue with leaving every other seat empty. Plus 50% of their revenue comes from the northeast (NJ/NY etc) which will be the last to open! Even if their expenses are also somehow cut in half (even though it’s more likely they’ll be around 75% because of costs not tied to employee salaries) they’ll still be spending significantly more than the “$83m per month” that he was touting. There is no way they make it 6 months without either doing another huge offering of stock and debt OR selling more of their properties to GLPI.
Either way the value goes down. Realistically a fair value for them now is $15 per share at best.

Good morning traders and investors of the wallstreetbets sub! Welcome to the new trading week and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market movers and news this AM-

Today's Top Headlines for Monday, March 30th, 2020

• U.S. stock futures were pointing to a modest decline for the Dow Jones Industrial Average at Monday’s open after President Donald Trump extended national social distancing guidelines to April 30. The Dow, which closed 4% lower Friday, did soar 12.8% for the week, logging its best weekly gain since 1938 and raising questions about whether blue chips have bottomed. However, heading into Monday’s session, the Dow was still nearly 27% off last month’s record highs. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained below 1% early Monday. U.S. oil prices sank below $20 per barrel, near 18-year lows hit earlier this month.

• On Sunday, mortgage bankers warned that Federal Reserve mortgage purchases are unbalancing the home lending market. In addition to the Fed’s extraordinary no limit fixed-income purchases, Wall Street analysts and economists said it would not be out of the question to see the central bank take for the first time ever a passive interest in the performance of the stock market.

• Preparing the nation for a death toll that could exceed 100,000 from the coronavirus, Trump on Sunday walked back his previous remarks about wanting to reopen the country for business by Easter. In continuing social distancing until the end of next month, the president said, “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory has been won.” Earlier on Sunday, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the country could see up to 200,000 deaths and millions of infections. However, he also cautioned that those numbers are based on outbreak modeling and nothing is certain.

• The U.S., which has the most known coronavirus infections in the world, saw confirmed cases jump to over 143,000 with 2,513 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. New York has about 40% of those cases and fatalities. A field hospital has been set up inside New York’s Central Park to treat coronavirus patients. Abbott Laboratories, which received FDA emergency use authorization on Friday for a test that can detect coronavirus in 5 minutes, was praised by Trump. “Abbott has stated that they will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day, starting this week,” he said. Abbott shares were soaring about 8% in the premarket.

• Global coronavirus cases increased to over 730,000 with 34,685 deaths and more than 149,000 recoveries. Italy, No. 2 to the U.S. in cases with about 97,700, has the worst death toll. Italy’s 10,779 fatalities are more than three times as many as China’s 3,308 deaths. Rounding out the top three, Spain just surpassed China in infections, with over 85,000 cases and more than double China’s death toll at 6,803. China, where the pandemic started in December, has the world’s fourth most known infections, nearing 82,200 cases. Germany is No. 5 in worldwide cases at about 62,400. It has 541 deaths.

• Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, plan to strike on Monday to call attention to what they claim is the lack of protections for employees. Chris Smalls, a management assistant and a lead organizer of the strike, told CNBC that workers at the fulfillment center known as JFK8, have grown increasingly concerned about coming into work after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus there last week. Amazon told CNBC that the company was supporting the individual in quarantine and asked anyone who was in contact with the worker to stay home with pay for two weeks. JFK8 remains open.

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($GRWG $GNLN $RMBL $CALM $CTEK $CYD)

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EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

FRIDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #4!)

FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS!)

TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #4!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #5!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #6!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #7!)

THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS:

• ABT
• AXSM
• JNJ
• NVDA
• CALM
• BK
• CAKE
• CVNA
• APD
• UBS

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – The company announced it has identified a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and plans to begin phase 1 clinical trials by September at the latest. Its intention is to have the first batches of vaccine available for emergency use by January.

STOCK SYMBOL: JNJ

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) – The nation’s largest egg producer reported quarterly earnings of 28 cents per share, 10 cents a share above estimates, Revenue also beat forecasts and Cal-Maine said it is not seeing any supply chain disruptions as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Sanofi (SNY), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) – The drugmakers expanded a clinical trial of their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara as a coronavirus treatment. The trial now includes patients outside the U.S., after beginning in America last week.

STOCK SYMBOL: SNY

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

United Technologies (UTX), Raytheon (RTN) – The defense contractors have received all regulatory approvals for their all-stock merger, and expect to close the deal prior to the open on Friday. United Technologies will be renamed Raytheon Technologies and trade under the ticker “RTX.” The Carrier and Otis businesses of United Technologies will become separate publicly traded companies, trading under ticker symbols “CARR” and “OTIS,” respectively.

STOCK SYMBOL: UTX

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: RTN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

La-Z-Boy (LZB) – La-Z-Boy furloughed 6,800 workers, cut the pay of senior management by 50%, and of salaried workers by 25%. The furniture maker also eliminated its June dividend and stopped its share repurchase program indefinitely.

STOCK SYMBOL: LZB

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Tegna (TGNA) – Tegna said it has held talks with two of four interested parties about their takeover proposals for the regional TV station operator. Those talks have stopped, however, due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: TGNA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Jefferies (JEF) – Jefferies said its Chief Financial Officer Peg Broadbent has died from the coronavirus. The investment bank named Teri Gendron, the CFO of the company’s financial services arm, as Broadbent’s successor.

STOCK SYMBOL: JEF

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Gilead Sciences (GILD) – Gilead said it would stop taking individual emergency requests for its experimental coronavirus drug due to overwhelming demand.

STOCK SYMBOL: GILD

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Eldorado Resorts (ERI) – Eldorado’s deal to buy rival casino operator Caesars Entertainment (CZR) could be in danger, according to the New York Post. The paper said regulators have delayed their review of the $17.3 billion deal due to the virus outbreak, while the casino industry takes a hard hit from ongoing closures.

STOCK SYMBOL: ERI

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Novartis (NVS) – Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told a Swiss newspaper that its malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is the drugmaker’s biggest hope against COVID-19.

STOCK SYMBOL: NVS

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Apple (AAPL) – Apple could see an 18% year-over-year drop in iPhone orders during the current quarter, according to a Reuters report.

STOCK SYMBOL: AAPL

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Papa John’s (PZZA) – Investor advisory firm ISS said retired basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal should not be re-elected to the board of the pizza chain, according to a Bloomberg report. ISS said O’Neal skipped too many board meetings and that shareholders should vote against his re-election at the April 23 annual meeting.

STOCK SYMBOL: PZZA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Procter & Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB) – Jefferies upgraded both consumer products makers to “buy” from “hold,” noting that both are benefiting from the “pantry-loading” taking place due to the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: PG

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: KMB

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

DISCUSS!

What is on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at wallstreetbets?

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Monday, March 30th, 2020! :)

Good morning traders and investors of the StockMarket sub! Welcome to the new trading week and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market movers and news this AM-

(CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL SOURCE!)

Today's Top Headlines for Monday, March 30th, 2020

• U.S. stock futures were pointing to a modest decline for the Dow Jones Industrial Average at Monday’s open after President Donald Trump extended national social distancing guidelines to April 30. The Dow, which closed 4% lower Friday, did soar 12.8% for the week, logging its best weekly gain since 1938 and raising questions about whether blue chips have bottomed. However, heading into Monday’s session, the Dow was still nearly 27% off last month’s record highs. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained below 1% early Monday. U.S. oil prices sank below $20 per barrel, near 18-year lows hit earlier this month.

• On Sunday, mortgage bankers warned that Federal Reserve mortgage purchases are unbalancing the home lending market. In addition to the Fed’s extraordinary no limit fixed-income purchases, Wall Street analysts and economists said it would not be out of the question to see the central bank take for the first time ever a passive interest in the performance of the stock market.

• Preparing the nation for a death toll that could exceed 100,000 from the coronavirus, Trump on Sunday walked back his previous remarks about wanting to reopen the country for business by Easter. In continuing social distancing until the end of next month, the president said, “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory has been won.” Earlier on Sunday, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the country could see up to 200,000 deaths and millions of infections. However, he also cautioned that those numbers are based on outbreak modeling and nothing is certain.

• The U.S., which has the most known coronavirus infections in the world, saw confirmed cases jump to over 143,000 with 2,513 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. New York has about 40% of those cases and fatalities. A field hospital has been set up inside New York’s Central Park to treat coronavirus patients. Abbott Laboratories, which received FDA emergency use authorization on Friday for a test that can detect coronavirus in 5 minutes, was praised by Trump. “Abbott has stated that they will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day, starting this week,” he said. Abbott shares were soaring about 8% in the premarket.

• Global coronavirus cases increased to over 730,000 with 34,685 deaths and more than 149,000 recoveries. Italy, No. 2 to the U.S. in cases with about 97,700, has the worst death toll. Italy’s 10,779 fatalities are more than three times as many as China’s 3,308 deaths. Rounding out the top three, Spain just surpassed China in infections, with over 85,000 cases and more than double China’s death toll at 6,803. China, where the pandemic started in December, has the world’s fourth most known infections, nearing 82,200 cases. Germany is No. 5 in worldwide cases at about 62,400. It has 541 deaths.

• Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, plan to strike on Monday to call attention to what they claim is the lack of protections for employees. Chris Smalls, a management assistant and a lead organizer of the strike, told CNBC that workers at the fulfillment center known as JFK8, have grown increasingly concerned about coming into work after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus there last week. Amazon told CNBC that the company was supporting the individual in quarantine and asked anyone who was in contact with the worker to stay home with pay for two weeks. JFK8 remains open.

STOCK FUTURES CURRENTLY:

(CLICK HERE FOR STOCK FUTURES CHARTS!)

LAST WEEK'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR LAST WEEK'S MARKET MAP!)

TODAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S MARKET MAP!)

LAST WEEK'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR LAST WEEK'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S!)

THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($RH $BB $VFF $CHWY $KMX $WBA $PAYS $TTNP $STZ $CALM $GNLN $CSU $CAG $MKC $RMBL $GPL $HEXO $PVH $DARE $CTEK $CYD $NVCN $LW $AYI $ICLK $ALPN $APOG $UNF $EAST $SMTS $CSSE $SCHN $LNDC $NG $RECN $EDAP $APTX $ASND $VRNT $MOTS $VERO)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

THIS MORNING'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($GRWG $GNLN $RMBL $CALM $CTEK $CYD)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

FRIDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #4!)

FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS!)

TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #4!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #5!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #6!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #7!)

THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS:

• ABT
• AXSM
• JNJ
• NVDA
• CALM
• BK
• CAKE
• CVNA
• APD
• UBS

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – The company announced it has identified a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and plans to begin phase 1 clinical trials by September at the latest. Its intention is to have the first batches of vaccine available for emergency use by January.

STOCK SYMBOL: JNJ

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) – The nation’s largest egg producer reported quarterly earnings of 28 cents per share, 10 cents a share above estimates, Revenue also beat forecasts and Cal-Maine said it is not seeing any supply chain disruptions as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Sanofi (SNY), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) – The drugmakers expanded a clinical trial of their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara as a coronavirus treatment. The trial now includes patients outside the U.S., after beginning in America last week.

STOCK SYMBOL: SNY

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

United Technologies (UTX), Raytheon (RTN) – The defense contractors have received all regulatory approvals for their all-stock merger, and expect to close the deal prior to the open on Friday. United Technologies will be renamed Raytheon Technologies and trade under the ticker “RTX.” The Carrier and Otis businesses of United Technologies will become separate publicly traded companies, trading under ticker symbols “CARR” and “OTIS,” respectively.

STOCK SYMBOL: UTX

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: RTN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

La-Z-Boy (LZB) – La-Z-Boy furloughed 6,800 workers, cut the pay of senior management by 50%, and of salaried workers by 25%. The furniture maker also eliminated its June dividend and stopped its share repurchase program indefinitely.

STOCK SYMBOL: LZB

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Tegna (TGNA) – Tegna said it has held talks with two of four interested parties about their takeover proposals for the regional TV station operator. Those talks have stopped, however, due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: TGNA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Jefferies (JEF) – Jefferies said its Chief Financial Officer Peg Broadbent has died from the coronavirus. The investment bank named Teri Gendron, the CFO of the company’s financial services arm, as Broadbent’s successor.

STOCK SYMBOL: JEF

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Gilead Sciences (GILD) – Gilead said it would stop taking individual emergency requests for its experimental coronavirus drug due to overwhelming demand.

STOCK SYMBOL: GILD

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Eldorado Resorts (ERI) – Eldorado’s deal to buy rival casino operator Caesars Entertainment (CZR) could be in danger, according to the New York Post. The paper said regulators have delayed their review of the $17.3 billion deal due to the virus outbreak, while the casino industry takes a hard hit from ongoing closures.

STOCK SYMBOL: ERI

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Novartis (NVS) – Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told a Swiss newspaper that its malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is the drugmaker’s biggest hope against COVID-19.

STOCK SYMBOL: NVS

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Apple (AAPL) – Apple could see an 18% year-over-year drop in iPhone orders during the current quarter, according to a Reuters report.

STOCK SYMBOL: AAPL

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Papa John’s (PZZA) – Investor advisory firm ISS said retired basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal should not be re-elected to the board of the pizza chain, according to a Bloomberg report. ISS said O’Neal skipped too many board meetings and that shareholders should vote against his re-election at the April 23 annual meeting.

STOCK SYMBOL: PZZA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Procter & Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB) – Jefferies upgraded both consumer products makers to “buy” from “hold,” noting that both are benefiting from the “pantry-loading” taking place due to the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: PG

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: KMB

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

FULL DISCLOSURE:

bigbear0083 has no positions in any stocks mentioned. Reddit, moderators, and the author do not advise making investment decisions based on discussion in these posts. Analysis is not subject to validation and users take action at their own risk. bigbear0083 is an admin at the financial forums Stockaholics.net where this content was originally posted.

DISCUSS!

What is on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at StockMarket?

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Monday, March 30th, 2020! :)

First of all,if you are a new player then GET THE HAKUCHOU.
It's one of the 4 vehicles that is FREE this week and it's also the best free vehicle. It has pretty good performance,can be used for the weekly time trial easily and you can spawn it anytime near you when you're in a motorcycle club. Nemesis is okish an okish bike,the Hot Rod Blazer is more for collections and the Raptor is more of a meme vehicle.
As for discounts,GET AN OFFICE ALREADY. Location doesn't really matter,pick your favourite location. It's also good to pickup one or more crate warehouses.
The Stromberg is a great MK counter and a useful vehicle in many missions such as the Vault Explosives in the Casino Heist. Make sure to pickup a Stromberg this week. Rocket Voltic would also be worth picking it up as you can customise it and use the custom version in the Rocket Voltic races. You can also use it in some freemode events and you'll unlock a VIP mission which pays a lot for an easy task like driving it around on the LSIA airport. The Flash GT and Itali GTB are both good cars but there are many better vehicles in their classes. The R88 is a free Podium F1 car but the PR4 is performance wise better.
As for money making this week:
DO 2X CASH VIP WORK. Maybe get some friends to play with you and combine the Casino Heist. Doing Casino Heist preps increases the associates/bodyguards salary which is this week also 3x cash so the amount you get every 20 minutes is from 15k to 30k(depending on how many missions the ceo does like crates,stealing supplies,casino preps and so on).
Keep in mind that VIP work are PvP missions so if you don't wanna end up blown up by someone and then rage on reddit,INVITE ONLY LOBBIES ARE A THING. DO THEM THERE INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING HERE. I'M ESPECIALLY LOOKING AT THE NEWER PLAYERS. Just because someone kills you while you do Sightseer in a public lobby doesn't mean it that you should be complaining on here,it was your own fault.
Oh and parachute races are 3x cash although it would be pointless to do them,they usually don't last long enough.

Good morning traders and investors of the stocks sub! Welcome to the new trading week and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market movers and news this AM-

Today's Top Headlines for Monday, March 30th, 2020

• U.S. stock futures were pointing to a modest decline for the Dow Jones Industrial Average at Monday’s open after President Donald Trump extended national social distancing guidelines to April 30. The Dow, which closed 4% lower Friday, did soar 12.8% for the week, logging its best weekly gain since 1938 and raising questions about whether blue chips have bottomed. However, heading into Monday’s session, the Dow was still nearly 27% off last month’s record highs. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained below 1% early Monday. U.S. oil prices sank below $20 per barrel, near 18-year lows hit earlier this month.

• On Sunday, mortgage bankers warned that Federal Reserve mortgage purchases are unbalancing the home lending market. In addition to the Fed’s extraordinary no limit fixed-income purchases, Wall Street analysts and economists said it would not be out of the question to see the central bank take for the first time ever a passive interest in the performance of the stock market.

• Preparing the nation for a death toll that could exceed 100,000 from the coronavirus, Trump on Sunday walked back his previous remarks about wanting to reopen the country for business by Easter. In continuing social distancing until the end of next month, the president said, “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory has been won.” Earlier on Sunday, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the country could see up to 200,000 deaths and millions of infections. However, he also cautioned that those numbers are based on outbreak modeling and nothing is certain.

• The U.S., which has the most known coronavirus infections in the world, saw confirmed cases jump to over 143,000 with 2,513 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. New York has about 40% of those cases and fatalities. A field hospital has been set up inside New York’s Central Park to treat coronavirus patients. Abbott Laboratories, which received FDA emergency use authorization on Friday for a test that can detect coronavirus in 5 minutes, was praised by Trump. “Abbott has stated that they will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day, starting this week,” he said. Abbott shares were soaring about 8% in the premarket.

• Global coronavirus cases increased to over 730,000 with 34,685 deaths and more than 149,000 recoveries. Italy, No. 2 to the U.S. in cases with about 97,700, has the worst death toll. Italy’s 10,779 fatalities are more than three times as many as China’s 3,308 deaths. Rounding out the top three, Spain just surpassed China in infections, with over 85,000 cases and more than double China’s death toll at 6,803. China, where the pandemic started in December, has the world’s fourth most known infections, nearing 82,200 cases. Germany is No. 5 in worldwide cases at about 62,400. It has 541 deaths.

• Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, plan to strike on Monday to call attention to what they claim is the lack of protections for employees. Chris Smalls, a management assistant and a lead organizer of the strike, told CNBC that workers at the fulfillment center known as JFK8, have grown increasingly concerned about coming into work after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus there last week. Amazon told CNBC that the company was supporting the individual in quarantine and asked anyone who was in contact with the worker to stay home with pay for two weeks. JFK8 remains open.

STOCK FUTURES CURRENTLY:

(CLICK HERE FOR STOCK FUTURES CHARTS!)

LAST WEEK'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR LAST WEEK'S MARKET MAP!)

TODAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S MARKET MAP!)

LAST WEEK'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR LAST WEEK'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S!)

THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($RH $BB $VFF $CHWY $KMX $WBA $PAYS $TTNP $STZ $CALM $GNLN $CSU $CAG $MKC $RMBL $GPL $HEXO $PVH $DARE $CTEK $CYD $NVCN $LW $AYI $ICLK $ALPN $APOG $UNF $EAST $SMTS $CSSE $SCHN $LNDC $NG $RECN $EDAP $APTX $ASND $VRNT $MOTS $VERO)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

THIS MORNING'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($GRWG $GNLN $RMBL $CALM $CTEK $CYD)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

FRIDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #4!)

FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS!)

TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #3!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #4!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #5!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #6!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #7!)

THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS:

• ABT
• AXSM
• JNJ
• NVDA
• CALM
• BK
• CAKE
• CVNA
• APD
• UBS

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – The company announced it has identified a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and plans to begin phase 1 clinical trials by September at the latest. Its intention is to have the first batches of vaccine available for emergency use by January.

STOCK SYMBOL: JNJ

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) – The nation’s largest egg producer reported quarterly earnings of 28 cents per share, 10 cents a share above estimates, Revenue also beat forecasts and Cal-Maine said it is not seeing any supply chain disruptions as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Sanofi (SNY), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) – The drugmakers expanded a clinical trial of their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara as a coronavirus treatment. The trial now includes patients outside the U.S., after beginning in America last week.

STOCK SYMBOL: SNY

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: CALM

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

United Technologies (UTX), Raytheon (RTN) – The defense contractors have received all regulatory approvals for their all-stock merger, and expect to close the deal prior to the open on Friday. United Technologies will be renamed Raytheon Technologies and trade under the ticker “RTX.” The Carrier and Otis businesses of United Technologies will become separate publicly traded companies, trading under ticker symbols “CARR” and “OTIS,” respectively.

STOCK SYMBOL: UTX

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

STOCK SYMBOL: RTN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

La-Z-Boy (LZB) – La-Z-Boy furloughed 6,800 workers, cut the pay of senior management by 50%, and of salaried workers by 25%. The furniture maker also eliminated its June dividend and stopped its share repurchase program indefinitely.

STOCK SYMBOL: LZB

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Tegna (TGNA) – Tegna said it has held talks with two of four interested parties about their takeover proposals for the regional TV station operator. Those talks have stopped, however, due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: TGNA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Jefferies (JEF) – Jefferies said its Chief Financial Officer Peg Broadbent has died from the coronavirus. The investment bank named Teri Gendron, the CFO of the company’s financial services arm, as Broadbent’s successor.

STOCK SYMBOL: JEF

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Gilead Sciences (GILD) – Gilead said it would stop taking individual emergency requests for its experimental coronavirus drug due to overwhelming demand.

STOCK SYMBOL: GILD

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Eldorado Resorts (ERI) – Eldorado’s deal to buy rival casino operator Caesars Entertainment (CZR) could be in danger, according to the New York Post. The paper said regulators have delayed their review of the $17.3 billion deal due to the virus outbreak, while the casino industry takes a hard hit from ongoing closures.

STOCK SYMBOL: ERI

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Novartis (NVS) – Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told a Swiss newspaper that its malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is the drugmaker’s biggest hope against COVID-19.

STOCK SYMBOL: NVS

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Apple (AAPL) – Apple could see an 18% year-over-year drop in iPhone orders during the current quarter, according to a Reuters report.

STOCK SYMBOL: AAPL

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Papa John’s (PZZA) – Investor advisory firm ISS said retired basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal should not be re-elected to the board of the pizza chain, according to a Bloomberg report. ISS said O’Neal skipped too many board meetings and that shareholders should vote against his re-election at the April 23 annual meeting.

STOCK SYMBOL: PZZA

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Procter & Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB) – Jefferies upgraded both consumer products makers to “buy” from “hold,” noting that both are benefiting from the “pantry-loading” taking place due to the coronavirus outbreak.

STOCK SYMBOL: PG

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STOCK SYMBOL: KMB

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DISCUSS!

What is on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at stocks?

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Monday, March 30th, 2020! :)