Online gambling for real money

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

How To Value A Stock (From Someone Who Has Beaten The S&P Almost Every Year Since 2008)

I recently wrote this up for my friends who asked me how I do what I do. I figured I'd share it here. This is freely available to anyone who wants it, though please credit me if you simply copy/paste. Nothing here is novel, and can be done by anyone. I am not a financial professional, and the example given below is only Abbvie because I forgot that Abbott Labs was alphabetically the first in the S&P 500 when picking an example.

First, let’s come right out and say that if you do not have the time to do this, or do not find it enjoyable, just buy low-cost index funds that track either the total market or the S&P 500.
Second, let’s make an important distinction:
Investing – This is the act of purchasing assets for less than their intrinsic value. This PDF will focus on how to determine the intrinsic value of an asset that produces income. Note that for most assets, this is simply how much money you can extract from the asset over the period of time that you hold it for. There’s no other value than money in investing. Causes and emotions are what philanthropy is for.
Speculating – This is, at its core, the act of taking supply of an asset from the present to the future (by hoarding it). If there is more demand, lower supply, or both, this pays the speculator to take the asset from a period of low value to one of high value. It is not gambling, but is very difficult to do, since it entails taking on timing risk. It is not illegal, immoral, or impossible, but I have no special insight into it. I’ll leave it there.
Gambling – This looks a lot like speculation, but without any particular reason to believe the asset will be more valuable in the future. Speculators at least estimate the value of an asset to investors, as they are ultimately the end market for an asset. Do not gamble. Full stop.
Determining the intrinsic value of an asset
The value of an asset is simply the present value of all future income that asset can provide you. Since a dollar in five years is naturally less valuable than a dollar today, you have to discount future income against the opportunity cost of forgoing the dollars you invest today. When we get to the Present Value equation, this is represented by interest. It can also be thought of as the opportunity cost of investing in the asset instead of some other asset or simply consuming the dollars instead.
Here’s the actual math. Note that it’s not super hard, and while I will explain it, there are dozens of free websites that will quickly let you calculate this. The key phrase to Google would be “present value of a growing annuity calculator.”
PV = (C / i - G) * {1 – [(1 + G)/(1 + i)]^n}
PV = present value
C = cash flow per period
n = number of payments
i = interest rate
G = growth rate
The value for PV is your estimation of what the asset is worth today. If this ends up far higher than the market price, you are probably purchasing dollars for quarters. Avoid edge cases, as you are guessing about both the interest and growth rate.
C is the cash flow per period. If you have a high degree of confidence in the culture of the company and it has a long history of being good stewards of retained earnings, you can use the earnings per share (EPS). I usually use the dividend. It is impossible to fake or financially engineer a dividend, and requires less looking through financial documents to make sure it’s what it appears to be. But for, say, Apple or Microsoft or Chevron, feel free to use the EPS.
The number of payments is how many payments you expect while holding the asset. Dividends in American companies are typically quarterly (though some pay monthly or every six months, so check on that), so every multiple of four would represent one year if you choose to do it that way. If n = 16, then you’re expecting to hold the asset for 4 years. You can also put in a year’s worth of dividends and keep n = years rather than quarters.
I typically do n = 30, since 30 years is both a long time horizon that is realistic, and coincides when I will hit “retirement age.” You will have to decide how far ahead you’re planning. For most people, they are net purchasers of investments while working and net sellers while retired, so keep that in mind. Note that using years instead of quarters will lessen the amount of compounding, and will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
Interest is one of the two variables you have to guess at. Typically, one would put what you expect the actual long-run interest rate to average for this investment. Unfortunately, this is really difficult. Instead, I use a rate that represents my opportunity cost. There are any number of relatively safe ways to get a 5% yield on money invested, so I generally use i = 5% to represent that this asset has to perform better than a utility or telecom or real estate investment trust. Feel free to use what you feel is most appropriate for you. A higher interest rate will lower the value of the asset, so high-balling this number will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
The second variable you have to guess at is the growth rate. If you’re looking at the dividend, you want to know how fast to expect it to grow over time. If you’re using the EPS for C, then you want to see how quickly the total earnings are growing per share. This is extremely difficult to predict. I recommend taking the 5-year growth rate and halving it. Dividends will also be more predictable here, as most companies pay out far less than they make, which means even if EPS grows slowly, the dividend can still grow quickly for many years after a boom is over for the company. Note that lowering your estimate for G will lower the value of the asset, so low-balling this number will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
OK, so let’s walk through an example. I’ll use Abbvie, a biotech/pharmaceutical company. It has a quarterly dividend for the coming year of $1.30/share. Its dividend has an 18.5% growth rate over the last 5 years, and has grown it for the last 7 (it’s only been around for 8 years).
I assumed a growth rate (G) of 7%. I used $5.20 as the starting dividend this coming year and used years for my n = 30. As always, I used i = 5%.
This gave me an estimated present value of 1 share of Abbvie at $197.94. As of writing this, Abbvie shares are trading on the market at $103.43. This looks like a screaming buy, but first let’s look at why I have a high degree of confidence.
Note how the interest was higher than the going rate – I used my “low-risk alternative” as an opportunity cost. Abbvie has an extremely high rate of growth for its dividend, so I took less than half of its current rate. I also calculated annually rather than quarterly, which reduces the impact of high rates of growth. That’s three places in the equation where I consciously lowered the estimated value of a share of Abbvie, and it still came out as a strong buy – spending less about 50c for a dollar!
I do this because even if I’m wrong in some or all of my predictions, I now have quite a bit of room to be wrong and still make money. It’s like how you don’t walk next to a steep cliff, right? You should know how to walk where you want to, but there’s always the small chance something could cause you to slip or put a foot wrong. But if your plan is always to be 5 feet away from the edge of the cliff, the odds are that you’ll not go over the edge even if you fall down.
Many people feel this is over cautious. But let my portfolio speak for itself. I’ve beaten the S&P 500 index fund every year except one since 2008. My brokerage only keeps digital records back to Dec 2015, but the S&P 500 returned 101% since then – with dividends reinvested. My own portfolio has returned 256%.
So caution is still very high reward. In fact, if you just don’t lose, you’ll do better than the vast majority of professional money managers (about 85% of whom cannot even match the index funds).
Due diligence still has to occur
Now, we can’t just go straight out and buy Abbvie – though it’s a high profile company that receives lots of investor and regulator scrutiny so it’s less likely to have a landmine than most. Just to make sure, you’ll want to do the following before buying shares in this company:
-Check the debt load. If the debt is very high, has very high interest rates, or has a lot of it maturing very soon, then this is a yellow flag. It doesn’t mean don’t buy, but make sure you understand the structure of the company’s debt and make sure it won’t impair the company’s earnings going forward. This information is found on the balance sheet. Abbvie has $97.287 billion in long-term liabilities such as debt, pension liability, and deferred taxes. That’s a lot compared to their assets, but they also are owed some money, so it nets out about $90 billion.
-What’s the book value? Book value is fairly low at $8.65/share. This is pretty much the assets minus the liabilities. Abbvie is in a knowledge industry, however, so you shouldn’t expect their main assets to be physical capital that can be sold. It’s mostly organizational or human capital from their workforce, so this isn’t worrying. If Abbvie was, say, a retailer with stores and land and inventory, you’d want this to be much, much higher for the share price. There’s no easy way to judge this one, unfortunately, but it’s good to look it up and you’ll eventually get a feel for it. No red flags here.
-What are the catastrophic risks that even you or I could think of? For a company in the pharmaceutical space, the obvious answer is regulatory and political risk. Regulatory risk is just want it sounds like – more regulation which can be either costly to comply with or lower profits. This does have an upside, which is that it makes it harder for new competitors to enter a market, so I tend to be rather sanguine about regulatory risk. Political risk is much more severe. This is when politicians decide to either confiscate a company, target it specifically rather than the industry it’s in, or other ways in which the government is involved with taking rather than regulating. In Anglo countries (US/UK/Canada/Australia), the rule of law is typically strong enough that this doesn’t happen much, as there is usually some kind of due process. Places like China, Argentina, Russia, and the EU are much more likely to nationalize or otherwise capriciously penalize a company due to the prevailing political winds. Abbvie has a global footprint, but that also means it’s diversified against such risk. It’s headquartered in the US, so it’s unlikely someone will simply take the entire company.
-Payout ratio? Abbvie has a fairly high payout ratio (80% for the last completed fiscal year of 2019), as they have been aggressively growing the dividend. That’s another good reason to input a much lower G than the last few years. That being said, Abbvie has been around for 8 years (it was spun off of Abbott Labs) and has grown its dividend for the last 7 years and has announced it will this coming year as well. The payout ratio is pretty high, but not worrisome. It suggests a fairly mature company that’s now returning cash to shareholders. I’d say this is not nothing, but less than a yellow flag for me. Any company with 95%+ payout ratio is much more vulnerable to a dividend cut.
-Credit rating? S&P gives Abbvie a BBB+ grade for its unsecured debt. This is a slight downgrade because their balance sheet is currently digesting a big acquisition from early 2020 (Allergan). Moody’s gives it a Baa2 rating for unsecured debt. These are both good, solid, investment-grade credit ratings (if you were buying the bonds of Abbvie). This looks great.
-Does it need a genius? Some companies run on all cylinders because they have a genius at the helm – often a founder. But what you want is a company any dummy can run, because sooner or later any dummy will. Don’t plan to invest long-term in companies that require skilled management. Abbvie is fairly diversified and has an OK pipeline of research. They also can buy little biotech companies that invent something but can’t navigate the regulations to bring it to market. So pondering giants are actually a good thing. Means they’re hard to break.
So, given that there was nothing obviously treacherous in our basic due diligence, and the extreme discount at which our example is selling for, this would be one you might want to buy! This is what I do for all the companies I invest in.
Notice that there is no story, no excitement, no narrative, no counting on good or bad management. Emotion has no place in investing. You also will notice that we took every opportunity to reduce the risk of losing your capital by always sandbagging the estimated value of the company. You never want to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller. You want the investment to be so obvious it hits you in the face like a baseball bat. If you’re ever on the fence, don’t do it. You don’t have to hit home runs – just don’t strike out.
You can be even more conservative in your estimates than I am. If, for instance, you used 5% growth rate for Abbvie’s dividend, you’d still get a present value of $148.57/share vs the current market price of $103.43. Similarly, you could use a higher interest rate, which would also lower the estimated present value.
You may have to do this calculation with more companies to find one to buy, but even in a very expensive market like today’s, there is always an opportunity. You don’t even have to look at little companies. There’s around 500 companies in the S&P – just start with “A” and work your way through all of them.
A quick note about further reading: I very strongly urge most people to actually read as little as possible on this subject once they get the basics. That’s not because there’s not more to learn, but because I would sadly say the majority of what I see and hear is actively bad advice. But if you do want to keep up with financial news and books and chat boards, the best thing to do is find out what the historical returns of the person giving advice are.
Since WWII, the long-run return on the S&P 500 has generally been just a bit shy of 10% per year. If someone can’t beat that, year-in-and-year-out, then their advice is worthless. As in, you don’t want to accidentally absorb it. This is, unfortunately, true for most professionals. Over the last 15 years, 92.2% of actively managed funds have underperformed a simple S&P 500 index fund (and they charge you fees for the privilege). Beware anyone selling something. The advice here is given freely
That’s why I made a point of mentioning that I have and regularly outperform the standard fund almost every year. Granted, I don’t have many of the regulatory restrictions a public fund would have, but it shows how useful the advice I’m giving here is. You don’t need anything fancy. You don’t need anything high risk. I’ve done this through two deep recessions and the longest bull market in history.
If you want to learn more about investing in general and where I learned how to do this, you can read Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. It was written in the 1930s, so much of the technical information is out of date. Skip over that and just read it for the concepts.
Even easier reading is to go online to Berkshire Hathaway’s website and pull Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s annual letter to shareholders. Almost all of them have something useful in them and don’t make you do equations.
I am available for questions in the comments

Lockdown, things to do, help & advice.

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.

Discussion of misconceptions surrounding recent flag episode

I read some interesting analysis online and thought it might be interesting to start a conversation here regarding the recent leak of a suggested strategy by a pr firm regarding labour using patriotic imagery.
The idea for this started from another thread when I was discussing with a user LabouStarmers approval ratings with BAME voters. A claim had been made and backed up via a StatsForLefties tweet that Starmer was losing approval with BAME voters (implication being BAME in particular) at a shocking rate. I looked into the IPSOS Mori data tables to verify and found this:

Ok just had a look at IPSOS. In Jun 2020 their BAME subtab consisted of 180 people. In December 2020 I couldn't find the numbers at all, but the general satisfaction rating they posted for Starmer that month was: 38 satisfied, 33 dissatisfied. So not only does the BAME number in the image seem to track the overall number (and thus indistinct), it also looks like BAME have a slightly higher net approval than the general number. So not sure the point holds water. Let me know what you think. EDIT: the december 2020 tabs had 100 people in the BAME subtab. So not only is the margin of error pretty stonking, but if you're tacking to the idea of this data being reliable it shows him having marginally slightly higher approvals amongst BAME than the general pop. So bit of a dud theory.

(The discussion was here https://old.reddit.com/LabourUK/comments/le14xblack_labour_members_are_set_to_boycott/)
Having looked at this I was curious about the earlier arguments, made in particular by Richard Burgon but with wide purchase from online posters, that the aforementioned strategy would cause us to haemorrhage votes with the BAME electorate. I found the following analysis which was interesting:
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1357370332676513800?s=19

Three problems with Richard Burgon's contribution to the whole patriotism/flags debate - which was (1) voters who like flags and patriotism have their own party - the Conservative party (2) chasing them means taking young and BAME voters for granted

People who like flags and patriotism is "most people" (see Sunder Katwala's thread for evidence). So the argument amounts to "Labour should reject what most people think on this, and actively encourage them to vote Conservative if this is something that is important to them."

The "most people" who like flags in patriotism includes, actually, most young people and BAME voters. So if your concern is not to take such voters for granted - i.e. seeking to reflect their views not ignore them - then rejecting flags & patriotism is the wrong approach

Burgon is concerned this will cost more voters than it gains. That seems unlikely given (1) and (2) above, but it also ignores geography. The minority of voters who actively dislike tepid appeals to flags are concentrated in safe Labour seats.

Losing some votes in seats where Labour has towering majorities to improve Labour's appeal in the much larger set of seats which do not return Labour MPs would seem, on the face of it, a worthwhile gamble.
Just to underline that I am not misrepresenting Burgon's views on this, the quote I am responding to is at the end of this article. https://t.co/dEnrJleNQb
The better point Burgon makes is that this kind of thing is no use as a substitute for more substantive policy and strategy. At best it is mood music. But given voters' views about Labour on this topic, a change of mood music is potentially worthwhile
For evidence that Labour has an image/brand problem to address here, see this polling. Voters consider themselves patriotic by a 61-16 margin (+45 net). They are more likely to think of Labour as not patriotic than patriotic - 35-40 margin (-5 net) https://t.co/RXWUjW8kNz

There is also the following article, which makes for interesting reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/07/labour-politics-making-use-of-patriotism-british-identity
Some quotes:

On this latter point, if the idea is that patriotism repels ethnic minority Britons, that feels to me like a foundational misunderstanding of British identity today – and how it has changed during the last decades.
Research for British Future soon to be published finds that pride in being British is shared by more than three-quarters of British ethnic minorities and a similar portion of their white fellow citizens. There are differences of tone and emphasis across generations and places but the story is definitely not one of white pride versus ethnic minority aversion.
“There ain’t no black in the union jack” was an old National Front chant before Paul Gilroy repurposed it as a title for his influential book on race, published in the late 1980s. The cover image of a black veteran, war medals on his chest, signified how selective the NF was in tracing the history it claimed to be proud of. Introducing his second edition early in the new century, Gilroy wrote of how British popular culture had put plenty of black in the union jack across the 1990s. How strange it would be if the left of the Labour party remained among the last to believe that devilish old tune.
Talk to refugees about what becoming British has meant to their families and you may decide that we should mark this summer’s 70th anniversary of the UN refugee convention by entrenching seven decades of refugee protection as a British value, too.
British Future found that one-fifth of white British Remain voters now say they are “not proud” to be British – about twice the number of ethnic minority Remainers who say the same. The British identity of ethnic minorities was much less tied up in their EU referendum choice. I would need less than the fingers of one hand to count the black and Asian Britons whom I have heard say they identify as European, yet most ethnic minorities voted Remain.
An everyday ease with our national symbols – the NHS, Remembrance Sunday and our flags, too – is one essential foundation. Only with that is it possible to secure a hearing for the next generation of arguments about what more needs to change.

In conclusion there appear to be two arguments forwarded. The first is that the strategy should not take the place of more substantial policymaking and should serve as a backdrop. The second is that the strategy will alienate and lose us votes with minority electorates.
The former is perfectly valid. The latter, as far as we can tell, is misinformation. We should be very careful to frame criticism in things that are either unambiguous fact or can be demonstrated with data... failure to do so not only proliferates misinformation but also puts us in the unenviable position of building strategies on sand that can do nothing but fail, because they are not related to reality.
Thought it would be cool to have a thread to get other takes on this

$700,000 Bet on Fintech - BFT

Women's group warns of major sex trafficking if casino plan goes through

Best and worst games I played in 2020

Here are my recommendations of games that I played for the first time in 2020. S-tier games that have become my all-time favourites made this list. 2020 was the year where I finally realised which games I actively want to play and it’s made my gaming experiences so much more entertaining.
Here are also some games to completely avoid with exaggerated opinions. These are some of the worst games I’ve ever played, ranging anywhere from confusingly irredeemable to malignant, insulting games that are only holding back video games as an entertainment and art form, and hate you for playing them.
I’ve listed some better games at the end of each review as much better alternatives with similar gameplay or style. Please vehemently disagree with me in the comments
Best: Resident Evil 2 Resident Evil 2 has everything I want from an action game. The core gameplay of running around a police department, escaping fights with monsters and zombies while working out puzzles is Resident Evil’s thing, and Resident Evil 2 adds solid gunplay, meaningful weapon upgrades and rewarding items for putting in extra effort. I only missed one which required some backtracking near the end of the game, and realised that about 5 minutes after a point of no return. The Tyrant chasing you around adds a lot of flavour to the game, forcing you to adapt strategies and plans. Resident Evil 2 also has my personal distinction of being the only game I’ve ever finished twice back to back, finishing Leon and then Claire’s story in a week.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Take everything I said about Resident Evil 2, plus frightening horror that actually got to me at points, a better story, and a first person perspective that works incredibly well, and that’s what I have to say about Resident Evil 7. Absolutely the best in the series as it amplifies what makes the Resident Evil games so great while adding equally interesting new ideas. The Baker family’s grotesque transformations and gory boss fights are highlights, chainsawing an old man’s face and shotgunning a crazy old woman is the most fun I’ve had this year.
Bloodborne It’s between Bloodborne or Bioshock as my favourite game of all time. I fear that I could spend hours typing what fascinated me about this game, so I’ll save my collected thoughts for another post. Bloodborne’s world is captivating from beginning to end. It unravels as you gather insight on the desecrated city of Yharnam, learning about the Healing Church forsaking the city with its endless hunts. My character, a woman who has left her land after her family were slaughtered by the same beasthood that ravaged Yharnam, fit perfectly with the story, and even thematically mirrored a DLC character’s past. By the way, The Old Hunters DLC is the best DLC ever, no doubt. If you’re going to buy Bloodborne go with Game of the Year edition, it’s spectacular. Of course you don’t need the DLC to fully enjoy the game, but it adds an impressive amount of gameplay hours, new story that adds to the main story, the excellent Research Hall level, the most dramatic boss fight and a pizza cutter weapon. Bloodborne’s gameplay is equally as fascinating as the story, with a fast-paced almost fighting game style combat system, a nearly completely connected immersive world, expert level design, some of the best bosses in any video game, and terrifying difficulty. For many players, these may seem too much or ‘not for me’, (always disappointing to see people give up on the Souls games, but understandable given the lack of beginner friendliness), and I certainly felt the same way at first. When I learnt to persevere and actively focus on the game, quitting out whenever a mild inconvenience in real life happened, it became a joy to play. I had mastered and overcome a godly challenge. I’m pretty terrible at games generally, so I honestly feel proud that I managed to beat this game and the DLC. Bloodborne’s cathartic moments, its incredible story and the pure art of the game which can be captured in a screenshot, or the masterful soundtrack, are all why it’s likely my favourite game ever.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Overlooked is an understatement. Made by the director of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, this game is metroidvania almost perfected. Almost, as there’s some inconsistent game design towards the end with a specific puzzle, but that’s my only real criticism. It’s also a well deserved ‘fuck you’ to Konami, with a pachinko boss fight and David Hayter practically voicing Snake. Gameplay is excellent with intuitive dungeons, bonus areas, RPG-style weapon, skills and armour customisation, and some crushingly difficult bosses. If you want a rest from the main game, you can always return to the beginning town and complete quests - my favourite is making meals for a constantly hungry old woman, as you can later buy and use them for permanent stat boosts. Shamefully, I really liked dressing up Miriam, the main character anime girl. Messing around with her skin colour and unlocking hairstyles is worth the £20 alone. With free upcoming DLC, it’s a perfect patient gamer game.
Spec Ops: The Line Spec Ops: The Line is a perfect game. Many criticise the cover shooting, but it twists the generic mechanics into something amazing. In games such as Gears of War or Uncharted, taking cover is used to stop enemies shooting at you, reload, regen health, have a cup of tea or anything you can do while crouching. Spec Ops, however, puts you against relentless enemies who will suppress your fire when in cover and move to flank you, meaning you are forced to move and take damage, or work out a strategy with your teammates on the fly. It’s not deep strategy, but it really adds a new dimension to the game which sets it apart. The level design is excellent too, with plenty of memorable combat arenas like a decaying stadium, a destroyed luxury hotel, and an abandoned mall, which all go hand in hand with the story, which needs no introduction. Dubai has been wiped out by a sandstorm, and a rogue US army battalion led by your former leader and some civilians remain. Each level adds another piece to the PTSD puzzle, as you mow down hundreds of American soldiers who scream out in fear and panic as the game slow-motions their heads being destroyed by one of your bullets, while death rattles of wounded soldiers permeate the arena. Walker, voiced expertly by Nolan North, slowly changes over the course of the game as his honest, heroic decisions turn out to be, well, not very heroic. One of my favourite details in a video game is how his reload and command voice lines change the further you go into the game, as the weight of his task to rescue civilians and extract his mentor becomes unbearable. Even the main menu changes throughout the game, representing the entropy of the city. I haven’t tried the multiplayer as there’s no one online, but the fact it’s there makes me appreciate this game even more. Spec Ops: The Line is video games as a narrative experience exemplified perfectly.
Rayman Legends Incredible 2D platformer that removes many conventions (lives, starting a level over, time) and is better for it. Each level has depth with collectables that unlock new characters and levels, and side challenges. The highlight is the music stages, which remix songs to fit the world’s theme, and the platforming is based on rhythm. Disappointing to hear of Michel Ancel’s departure from Ubisoft, as that means we’ll likely never get a sequel. I sympathise with you, Beyond Good and Evil fans. Now if only Ubisoft executives could stop trying to mount every female in the workplace and work on another of these games (Seriously though, fuck Ubisoft for the sexual assaults and their PR coverups).
Mario Kart Wii I never owned a Wii as a child. It pained me to see all my friends play Wii Sports Resort and Super Mario, but one game in particular eluded me: Mario Kart Wii. The speed, the soundtrack, the plastic wheel you put over the Wiimote - I remember being captivated by it and wishing I could have a gaming experience like that in my own home. 12 years later, the Wii and Wii U have as much grasp on popular culture relevancy as Game of Thrones, which is the perfect time to buy an old console and a copy of this game. Mario Kart Wii is exactly as I remember. Coconut Mall, DK’s Snowboard Cross, battle mode, plus all the tracks my friends never unlocked make this one of my personal favourites. I debated putting it on this list as I’d find it hard to compare to a game like Bloodborne or Bioshock, but any game that creates the same childhood wonder in me is instantly going in my favourites list. Mario Kart Wii is fun racing with enough depth to get good at, and even more exciting playing it with friends. Especially when you’ve got a spiny shell.
Worst: Rise of the Tomb Raider Basically ‘ok’ can only last so long before becoming tedious. Rise of the Tomb Raider does nothing notable with its gameplay. Most egregious is the plot that’s basically stolen beat for beat from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Mountains, evil super-Russians, and annoying bullet sponge mythical enemies at the end (although they’re better than the bootleg Thanos’ you fight in U2, but basically anything is). Lara Croft is insufferable, she has no personality and grunts and shoots her way through every situation. Definitely the best of the worst list as I finished only this and Detroit but I really shouldn’t have wasted my time. Instead play Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Saints Row Mid-2000s 50 Cent and Soulja Boy era hip hop aesthetics were always cringe. Saints Row goes for that materialistic objectify all women attitude without much irony and actually takes itself seriously. The beginning is every angry teenage white boy’s dream of various women trying to sleep with you, surviving a gang attack and then being recruited to this gang because they noticed you’re such a chad. I’m surprised he didn’t also win a rap battle against Eminem. It’s trying to be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with its satire and comedy, but it ends up being cringy rather than funny when you’re listening to the stereotypical camp gay guy shouting down the radio without any smart jokes or wordplay. The game also runs terribly, even on my original Xbox One. I’m really hoping the other games in this series are as good as everyone says, and this is only a false start. Instead play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare I imagine the pitch for this game was ‘Consumers didn’t like consuming the new Halo’s that they’ve consumed. Anyway, fellow executive, how will we make consumers consume another Call of Duty?’ ‘Let’s make the consumers consume Call of Duty while ripping off Halo down to the weapon and ship designs and promise a sci-fi experience with 2016 relevant celebrities and the usual passionless gameplay, and completely break the multiplayer with pay-to-win weapons. That way we can consume all of the disappointed Halo consumers’ money plus the yearly sycophants’ who’ll buy our games every year anyway. Wanna test our brand loyalty by releasing the worst trailer ever?’ Instead play Halo 4
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 malignant and represents the worst of ‘live service’ microtransaction lootbox fuelled games. Literally a pay to win £50 (70 USD) game with overpowered weapons only in lootboxes that Activision promised not to include, no campaign and another cringy comedy zombies mode. Fuck this game and fuck Activision. I hope the executives’ spoilt and probably racist children are happy with the money they’ve got from gambling addicts. Instead play Doom Eternal
Detroit: Become Human malignant and represents the worst of emotional story-driven artistic pretentious wank games. Horrible storytelling about racism and abuse, no interesting or likeable characters, nonsensical plot twists and unbelievably miserable forced drama. Obvious and rudimentary observations about complex and incredibly serious social issues are constant. It feels exploitative and contrived to see humans try to rape and murder the harmless androids when in the game’s own context it makes no sense. I’m really sick of seeing this stuff in games and films, the obvious contrivances like stabbing a pregnant woman in the Last of Us by accident, ‘Now you must hate her, audience!’ Terrible writing. If you don’t make the choices the game wants you to make you’re railroaded until you play the game ‘properly’, so your choices mean nothing. I chose not to rescue a character who explicitly hated me because I was an android, which locked me out of a good (relative) ending, because your choices affect a good ending/bad ending binary system. Not playing the game the way David Cage wants you to? Bad ending, though the ‘good’ endings are equally poorly written. While I did actually finish the game, it is absolutely NOT representative of how much I enjoyed it compared to the others on this list. I only stuck around to the ending because my friends constantly recommended it, and because of the praise from reviewers desperate to give any high profile game a positive review if it increases their chances of working for a game company. See this year’s Game Awards as perfect example. David Cage has no ideas that aren’t already from much better movies, the talentless misogynist. I’m pretty sure he ripped the narrative straight out of Humans, a 2015-2018 UK TV show from the few scenes I’ve seen from it. At least Kojima makes good games when he steals from movies, and dubiously sexualises women. Instead play Batman and Batman: The Enemy Within (and watch Seven, Memento, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049)
Aliens: Colonial Marines it’s awful, but I’ll still take this over Black Ops 4 or The Division. Every level has basic and boring corridors with broken AI targets to shoot. I gave up after a broken stealth section. Pretty funny to watch, though. Instead play Doom
Knack memes aside, Knack sucks. Broken combat where every enemy is so vastly more powerful than you, no real combos in a beat ‘em up, strange Lego knockoff character designs. I can’t wait to play Knack 2 after I’ve finished literally every other game in existence Instead play Lego Marvel Super Heroes and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Dragon Ball Final Bout No idea why I played this, I don’t even like Dragon Ball. Anyway, it’s unplayable due to the abysmal controls Instead play Tekken 3
Wii Music Nintendo are pretty cool, but not free from making terrible games. Wii Music has no real gameplay. As soon as you put in the disc, you’ve won the game. Waving the Wiimote around without any rhythm or skill gets you through every song in the limited track list, which lacks any Killing in the Names or Through the Fire and the Flames(s). No fun at all, and especially disappointing from Nintendo. Instead play Tetris Effect: Connected
Tunnel B1 obscure mid-90s game. The colour brown. Best left forgotten. Instead play Star Wars Battlefront II
Tom Clancy’s The Division The Division proves that the gaming industry is often going backwards. It has less gameplay than Gears of War, another third-person cover shooter from 2006, released ten years before the Division. Even basic enemies are bullet sponges, meaning every encounter is hiding behind a chest high wall and waiting to unload 30 more rounds into them. The story is completely tone deaf and idiotic with a huge disconnect from the gameplay. If you’re a highly skilled operative why is one random thug so much more powerful than you? One of the most infuriating, lazy ways of designing combat, the anti-power trip. Life-wasting Ubisoft hollowness. At least I didn’t waste a weekend, as you can see all the game has to offer in about 4 hours. Instead play Spec Ops: The Line

AirBNB & DoorDash IPOs | CHEWY & GameStop EARNINGS | APPLE news| STOCK MARKET NEWS [12-09]

Chewy crushes earnings reports, while GameStop disappoints. What is the latest news on Apple and the new AirPods Max? Should we buy AirBNB or DoorDash when they launch tomorrow? Let’s talk about this and more about the stock market
Hey everyone and Good Morning! So, let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we saw the Nasdaq Composite leading the way up half a percent, the SP500 up .28%, both of them closing at new record highs with the Dow Jones also up .35% to close Tuesday. The VIX also showed a steady decline through the day as it dropped almost 3%. This moves in the market were caused by the latest hopes for a stimulus deal to be agreed on by the end of current session in congress as there seems to be a lot of ground on which parties can agree on. Things have gotten worse in the economy since this hole stimulus talk has been going around, so, if both parties would have been more willing to give up some ground, people would have already gotten more support and we would probably be talking about other bills or measures that would have helped even more. So, maybe this latest Mnuchin proposal with maybe minor tweaks would be the best chance of anything happening by the end of this year.
We saw more companies advancing yesterday as over 3 thousand companies were moving up, continuing the huge bull run started in November as more than 84% of companies are moving above the 50 and 200-day moving averages. The best gaining sectors yesterday were Energy and Health Care while Real Estate and Utilities lagged behind as Large-Cap Growth companies were the only company factor analysis that lost ground yesterday, with small-caps, especially small-cap growth companies largely outperforming the markets.
You can see in this HEAT MAP that there were gains to be made yesterday in a lot of parts of the stock market, with only a few big red spots on the map.
Today we will get some numbers on the November Job openings, MBA mortgage applications and Petroleum inventories.
While we got some earnings yesterday from Chewy which dazzled again in earnings with the only small miss coming in net sales per customer, but as the number of customers keeps increasing, this might continue to go down, as not every pet owner spends the same amount of big money on pets. The company reported an EBITDA of $5.5M vs a loss of over $9M expected with the gross margin increasing to over 25% while also giving great guidance for Q4 of $1.94B to $1.96B vs less than $1.8B expected by analysts.
The company also turned around to a positive cash flow of over $30M. I really like this company and I expected it to be a good own at least for the next quarter until they reach more hard earnings comps next year.
Meanwhile, as I expected GameStop had another bad quarter despite beating some earnings estimates with a smaller loss than expected, the revenue still continued to drop over 30% on a year over year basis while comps where even worse missing the expectations by quite a margin.
Though e-commerce sales rose by more than 250% in Q3, this did not offset the comparable store sales. Margins also declined with hardware margins being the biggest reasons why. I think this company has a very though challenge on its hands with e-commerce being such a though place to compete in, I think the shift to online has been delayed for this company and I think it will struggle to survive, even though it might see a boost next quarter from the sales of the new gaming consoles that were released last month from both Sony and Microsoft. GME EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
I wouldn’t touch this stock as I think there are far better plays out there than betting on this struggling company.
The only company that I am interested today which will release earnings results is ADOBE which is expected to have the best results ever for the company with an increase of over 12% in both EPS and Revenues. Last go around despite posting great results, the stock fell more than 4% in September and have just recovered to that price point. I expect it this time to go higher and stay that way if they manage to deliver the best quarter on the books.
Meanwhile DoorDash is pricing its initial public offering at over 100$/share which I believe is ridiculous, and it is an flat out joke of a valuation, this company has benefited a ton from this economy and still, this valuation implies that they will have over 50% of the total addressable market not in the US, but in the WORLD in the next couple of years, I don’t think this is a good investment opportunity, they will have increasing competition that offer the same thing for free or cheaper, this is a very though business to try and take over as one single company. People will also be way more likely to start going to restaurants maybe not in 2021 but for sure starting 2022 or whenever the vaccines are widely available in the entire world. I wouldn’t touch this stock at such high valuations, especially over 110$, even if I was looking for short-term gains which might end up being the case, I think there are better opportunities out there.
In contrast to DoorDash, I might be interested to buy some AirBNB if the price is right after the IPO, I think it will have a much better future, as personally I really like to rent out apartments or homes whenever I go on a vacation rather than a traditional hotel. And even though it might have a tough Q4 and Q1 next year, I expect by Q2 next year more people will be vaccinated, so more people will start and go out and travel, and with especially low comps for next year as bookings are way down in 2020 this might make the company look much more attractive by this time next year. So, between DoorDash and AirBNB, I clearly like AirBNB a whole damn lot more.
In other IPO news, RBNHD is expected to go public as soon as Q1 next year as they seek a valuation of over $20B.
Some other Boeing came for companies like Boeing which made its first 737 MAX delivery since the ban ended, as it is expected to start rolling out deliveries and upgrades for current planes at a very good rate with more good news coming from the UK which will suspend the tariffs imposed on US Goods.
While PENN gaming ran to an all-time high yesterday after news that sports betting may be launched in Michigan as early as six weeks from now, as legalization of gambling is moving faster and faster in the US, this also bolds well for DraftKings and other gambling stocks.
Also, ETSY keeps getting upgrades from analysts as they are expected to have a great Q4 suggested from the most recent November sales data.
And finally let’s talk about Apple, as they just revealed the new AirPods Max headphone yesterday, with a huge price tag of 549$, this seemed to gain a pretty bad reaction from consumers as they complained about the huge price tag with competitors like Bose and others selling similar headphones for 350$ or less. These headphones, also have a bigger price tag than even the new PS5 videogame console so we will have to wait and see if this is a successful product from Apple, I think they have gone a little overboard with the price, but rich people do tend to pay a premium for brand names. This can also be seen in the latest analyst call from JPMorgan as customers appear to favor high end models as delivery times have been increasing for the 12 Pro and 12 PRO MAX.
On the better side of things for Apple, the Fitness+ service is expected to launch on the 14th of December and it will cost $9.99/month or $79.99$/year. I expect this to be a better success for the company and to drive an even more stable increase of revenues, as subscription-based revenues are better than one-time sales.
So, I still like this company the most in the long-term and it might see a spike in the near future, especially moving closer to Q4 results and earnings. Apple is still the biggest position in my portfolio and I am not planning on changing that anytime soon.
Good luck to everyone in the stock market as the futures are mixed while writing this post with the DOW and SP500 gaining ground while the Nasdaq futures are just down for the moment.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market!
Have a great day and see you next time!

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AirBNB & DoorDash IPOs | CHEWY & GameStop EARNINGS | APPLE news| STOCK MARKET NEWS [12-09]

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