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"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
FuboTV DD (First time making DD, please give advice)
I tried to make it easy to skip around if you just want to see the financials or estimates. Just scroll to them if you don't care what the company is or their sectocompetition/management. TL;DR at bottom with final thoughts. Introduction “FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies. Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018." From their home page: They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons). They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN). Plans and Add-ons FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page). The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page). The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page). The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page). Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page). Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month. Financials and Growth Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands. Assets- Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention. Liabilities- Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905. Revenues- Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a 77-84% increase YOY. Expenses- Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year. Subscribers- Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY. Competition Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)). Hulu + Live TV
Includes league networks
50 hours of free DVR (200 hours for $9.99/month)
More than 74 channels
Unskippable ads on DVR without upgrade to 200 hours
2 streams at a time
$64.99/month
Can add ESPN+ and Disney+ for an additional $7/month
YouTube TV
Includes league networks
Unlimited DVR storage
More than 85 channels plus YouTube Red Originals
3 streams at a time
Sports Plus package for an additional $10.99/month
NBA LeaguePass for an additional $40/month or $119.99 annually
Starting at $64.99/month
Sling TV Blue
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 45 channels
3 streams at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Orange for a total of $50/month
Sling TV Orange
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 30 channels
1 stream at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting at $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Blue for a total of $50/month
Merger with FaceBank for $100 million revolving credit
Analysts and Estimates Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021. Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%. Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance. Risks
Marketing fails and Fubo is never known as a household name, so consumers stick with other more known providers
Their sportsbook fails and becomes dead weight and wasted money
Subscriber count and streaming drops as quarantine lifts, reducing revenues while maintaining expenses
Consumers opt for cheaper options
People paying for the sports package cancel when the season is over, creating a boom and bust cycle if not managed correctly
Final Thoughts / TL;DR With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition. At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue. My Position 25 shares at $47.30 Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.
I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration
Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long! Section One: Assets and Debt As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design. The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now. I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding. Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar. Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account). Equity: None, we rent. Savings account balance: Approximately $45k. Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k. Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance. Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded. Section Two: Income Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid). Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college. I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that. Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck. Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID. Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice. Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None. Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month. Section Three: Expenses Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost). Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month. Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing). Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc. Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard. In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years. Debt payments: None. Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times. Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month) Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future? Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.) Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share. Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time. Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time. Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month. Regular therapy: $0 Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies. Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k. __________ Day 1 Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though. I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip). Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch. I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point. Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine. Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53). I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week. Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai. Daily total: $222.89 Day 2 Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning. Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants. I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill. Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments. K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01). Daily total: $22.01 Day 3 Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out. Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error. Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point. Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack. After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle. Daily total: $0 Day 4 Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good. Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48. Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing. We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget). Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly. Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course. Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it. Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast. K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm. Daily total: $239.34 Day 5 Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious. We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin. Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm. The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free! In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip). Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek. Daily total: $80.51 Day 6 Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain. By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners. On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb. Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side. We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo. Daily total: $0 Day 7 Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay. One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly. Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out. I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet! I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo. Daily total: 70.36 Food + Drink: $395.23 Fun / Entertainment: $26.40 Home + Health: $26.60 Clothes + Beauty: $0 Transport: $16.40 Other: $170.48 Grand Total: $635.11 I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.
#NoSqueezeNeeded: a simple plan to save our people at $483.
No disclaimer as there is no financial advice here. Position: 800 @ xx.xx TL;DR: The squeeze is not required. We can save everybody and shoot for the stars. My fellow 🐵, retards, a-genius and girlfriend's husband, it is now your time to shine and show the world what eating crayons and sniffing glue has done to your smooth brains. GME is currently at $52.40, with a market cap of $3.65B. As I math badly I will rule of three and say we need a $34B valuation to reach $483. I know... $34B seems like a lot of money, but humour me for a second and have look at this. You have landed on page 6. For the next few minutes, I will ask you to scroll up the top of the list and gibber if you don't find a name that, in your mind, is worth far less than GME. Do it, I will wait... You did your DD but it's still shocking, isn't it? The squeeze is not required. Now that it has sunken in: • This sub has nearly 80000 members. • Let's say 1% of them read this post, it's 800. • 10% (trying to be super conservative) of the 800 have ideas about how to improve GameStop business in general and/or make the public realize the true value of the company. That's a dedicated and motivated team of 80 producing at least 1 idea, so 80 ideas. • 2% of the 80s are actually really good and we end up with a bit more than 1 genius idea. ...and that's all we need. A single idea to move GME's valuation to a fair region above $34B and come back for our wounded. Now here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to update this post and the list below with the best 🥜 produced by your challenged cerebra. With a little bit of luck, we get enough traction and get pinned. So without further ado,
How to ensure the long-term survival of GME – our plan to become an interplanetary species and settle permanently among the stars:
u/schokoschlotze: Allowing digital reselling of gamekeys, unlike steam.
u/Diamond_Hands_Only: They need a online gaming platform like steam so I can buy and stream all my purchased games through them from one spot. GameStop.(u/mouldysandals: GameSpot)
u/OTHERMIKEtm: VR arcade with memberships. Not everyone can afford the high end computer and peripherals to have the ultimate VR experience.
u/Purrnie_Sandturds: Digital crypto currency that is accepted at GameStop stores and compatible with popular mobile/app gaming platforms. Should be distributed as a shareholder dividend.
u/pawn4king: Non shitty esports SaaS. Allowing me to create a local esports tourney and manage it all with the branding of GameStop. Esports gambling and leaderboards included. From local tourneys to large scale corporate events.
u/wiscowhaaat: Honestly, I’d like to see them as a competitor to twitch, but also become a steam competitor, as another redditor mentioned they would like to be able to sell their digital key. The one thing I hate about GameStop is that they deal too much in figurines and Knick knacks. What they need is the ability to sell ad space, because that’s obviously where the money is based on what we’ve seen out of Facebook and Twitter, etc.
u/utkant: GameStop should make play cafe, where kids can hang out and play together. Sell candy, soda, pizza, etc. Run local tournaments, regional tournaments, national, world tournaments. Sell best seller games on these places so kids can buy them to have at home if they want to.
u/Alarming-Event-8788: How about being able to live bet ($) games against each other online?
u/AvenDonn: Expand into all forms of gaming. Sports, tabletop, roleplaying, arcade (VR), as well as a publisher for video games. Good synergy with a steam competitor, being able to return digital "used" games for store credit or even real money is defintely a strong move.
u/Walruzuma: Ummm... Pretty sure Ryan Cohen has this covered. I think he's much of the reason for the original DD on the play and why no one is worried about hodling.But what do I know. I'm just a simple cave man who does not offer financial advice. But I do offer advice about shills. Don't tell this guy anything (op: sure mate)
We like the stonk.
Ladies and gentletards, synchronize Flik Flak. 💎👐🚀
Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls, I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps. I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders. While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months. Any feedback or additions are appreciated Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer. Here's what I tell options beginners: I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot. I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7 Helpful websites:
Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.
Basics / Mechanics
Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.
General Tips and Ideas:
Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
“Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
Understand Liquidity and volume.
Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
Time in market vs timing the market:
It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.
Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation
If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out onby not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.
Trade Planning & Position Management Tips
As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
Covered Calls:
If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.
-Advanced Beginner- Spreads
Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
Spreads usually require margin trading.
Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
Vertical Credit spreads:
Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
Short Straddle:
Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation
Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
Short attacks:
Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306
-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)- You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another. Options Strategy Finder This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below. https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Short Strangle / Straddle
Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
Limited risk / limited reward.
Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)
PMCC / PMCP
PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.
Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.
Disclaimer: I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you. I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.
This is the first relevant megathread for the joyous, drunken festival of Purim. This is NOT in any way meant to limit the number of Purim-related posts standing alone in the sub, but rather is meant to provide a central location for questions, comments, and advice as we approach what for many Jews around the world will be their second Purim in relative isolation. Those of us lacking vaccination and/or live-in community (that is, family) will likely have to get creative again this year to fully celebrate this celebration. However, that doesn't mean that you'll be alone this year for this most wine-soaked time of our year. Ask questions and share ideas here to help your fellow Jews the world over celebrate with as much merry community merriment as possible. Some resources to introduce the holiday:
These links were from a quick consultation with Rav Google (and just knowing some good resources). There are many, many resources about Purim out there. If you have any to add to this list, please share below. In most of the world, this Persian-Jewish festival starts on the evening of Thursday, February 25 and runs through Friday, February 26. For those of us who prefer to use our own calendar, it all happens on Adar 14. And since Jerusalemites like being more special than the rest of us, they have Purim on the 15th. Because walls. See u/Elementarrrry's comment from last year here for more context on that. Special Edit: This year (5781/2021) is also special for those special Jerusalemites because it's Purim Meshulash, a three-fold Purim. More info here. Story Time: Purim celebrates the story of Queen Esther, mamash a shayna punim from the Achaemenid Persian Empire about three MBP (5th century BCE). She and her cousin/uncle/fathehusband (choose one) Mordechai decide to put her up as a candidate for queen after the king, Ahasuerus (possibly Xerxes I or Artaxerxes I) 'removed' his wife, Vashti, for refusing to do a strip-tease for his cronies during a six-month shindig he threw in the city of Shushan. Esther, being as beautiful and poised as she was, was the clear choice, and she became the next queen. The king doesn't know she's Jewish, which at first isn't an issue but becomes evidently relevant shortly. Note: if anyone has issues with my description of her beauty, you may go kvetch withu/MendyZibulnik. I prefer to think of Esther as a hottie. A little while later Mordechai, being the mensch he is, stops an assassination attempt against the king by two royal guards. He gets promoted to someone that the king officially likes. However, not everyone likes him. Enter: Haman (aka shmuck supreme), the king's royal advisor who also wore stupid hats. Or maybe just had stupid ears. The jury is out on this point (all three of them). As most old men are wont to do, Mordechai likes to chill by the palace gates. Coincidentally, Haman goes through those gates a lot. He also expects everyone to bow to him, since he's all special and stuck-up. But Mordechai isn't just a mensch in public: he's also mamash a yiddisher kop, and won't bow to Haman. Naturally, Haman then wants to kill all the Jews. Because, y'know, why not? So Haman, being the shmendrik he is, drew lots (viz. gambling lots) to decide on the day he's going to kill all of us. Linguistic note: This is where the name for the holiday comes in: in Hebrew, פור / pür, is a gambling lot, related to the term for fate: גורל. Purim means "lots." (There are also some great divrei Torah relating Purim to Yom Kippur, which have more in common than just linguistic roots.) Mordechai discovers this plot and tells Esther about it. There's some back and forth, and eventually they both are publicly mourning: fasting, rending their clothes, etc. Since no one likes to be left out, all the other Jews of Shushan join in, and as any mob of wailing people would, it gets the king's attention. At first he's not so concerned, because, y'know, Jews, but then he finds out that his own wife is Jewish and then 👏 shit 👏 gets 👏 real. Queen Esther convinces her husband the king to do something, so instead of awarding some special honors to Haman as the king was planning, he tells Haman to award those honors to Mordechai. Super embarrassing for Haman. The story ends with Haman and his entire family being hung hanged from the gallows built for . . . us! An additional 75,000 of Haman's henchmen/supporters are also killed in the streets throughout the empire as a pre-emptive defense by the Jews, with the blessing of the king. The end. -- The four main ways people celebrate this day are:
Megillah: listening (not just hearing, but actually listening) to the reading of the Megillat Esther(Book/Scroll of Esther) twice, once in the evening (erev Purim) and once during the day (Purim)
Mishteh: having a big meal (seudah) and eating foods that refer to the story: hamantaschen, ojos de Haman, blintzes, kreplach, seeds and nuts
Mishloach manot: exchanging/giving 'goody bags' that usually include two different foods (I've seen disagreement on whether the two foods need to have different brachot, or just be two different foods)
Matanot l'evyonim: giving tzedakah/charity
Two other common ways to celebrate are:
Carnivals: dressing up in costume and having parties with games, music, etc.
Shpiels: general insanity, fun and games, making up stupid stories and laughing at people who don't understand what the hell is going on
There are many other traditions, and I encourage any of our Persian/Iranian brothers and sisters to contribute their traditions, as I am not comfortable explaining them. All I really know is that in some communities this is seen as a major feminist holiday, and some Iranian Jews visit Esther's grave. I encourage everyone to spend some time online today reading about the holiday. It’s a great historical holiday and with research a great way to break from the doldrums of modern Jewish life.
Sonasoft [$SSFT] Autonomous AI Platform Company: Undervalued and Underrated
NuGene is Sonasoft's autonomous AI platform TLDR; Sonasoft was founded by Silicon Valley tech veteran Andy Khanna in 2003, with an initial focus on data migration, storage, and management. With AI tech growing and big data booming, SSFT began to invest in AI tech and in 2018 acquired IT solutions company Cornerstone and AI company Hotify. This turned Sonasoft into an E2E, A to Z, IT, Big Data, AI, and ML company offering a unique set of solutions for customers. Currently, the company posts $13M+ in revenue a year, with a market cap of <$80M. This is a hidden gem. This is incredibly undervalued right now and a strong buy and hold. SSFT currently trades at $0.17 I wanted to create this write-up because there is some additional detail from Sonasoft's robust 2020 for you all to absolutely chew on before buying in. Please find an incredibly thorough DD here.
A focus on AI
Put simply, Sonasoft focuses on delivering AI solutions for customers. Sonasoft's Unified AI platform, NuGene, lies at the heart of this strategy. NuGene simplifies how developers and data scientists build and deploy AI bots. The Sonasoft ‘bot factory’ streamlines the process of creating and deploying AI models. This starts with defining the problem and gathering the data, then it uses its own AI engine to build a robust model. Finally, it simplifies the process of deploying the model in production. This allows companies to benefit from AI without needing to employ large teams of data scientists. Uniquely, NuGene is capable of dealing with extremely rich and diverse datasets without the need to simplify the raw data. This means the resulting AI models are far more robust against bias. Data analytics and AI/ML need only continues to grow
In Q4 of 2020, Sonasoft hired veteran ML engineers and data scientists. This allowed a focus on taking NuGene from MVP (minimum viable product) to a fully-fledged product. Real money is being made. The Head of Engineering is Max Lee, who has an extensive background in creating hardware and AI solutions for chatbots, signal processing, and computer vision. He epitomizes the way the whole engineering team works. He is able to solve problems by applying his multi-disciplinary knowledge that spans mathematics, science, engineering, and ethics. The Head of Data Science is Caroline Zaborowski. She brings years of experience applying data science to solve complex problems in the online gambling industry. Prior to that, she completed a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford. She ensures Sonasoft applies rigorous standards of data science, which has allowed NuGene’s performance to improve significantly.
New Management Team
2020 saw significant changes in the management of Sonasoft. This started in December of 2019 when Mike Khanna was promoted to CEO. One of his first priorities was to bring in a new C-suite with the experience to complete Sonasoft’s transformation that began 2 years earlier. Rob Baumert, Sonasoft’s CFO since Feb 2020, brings over two decades of experience to the Sonasoft management team. Prior to Sonasoft, he spent 7 years at RedBubble, serving variously as Chief Operations Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Director of Financial Planning & Analysis. Over that time, they saw sales surge from $3MM to $143MM. INSANE! Paul Clauson, appointed as COO Q4 2020, has worked with ML engineers and data scientists for the better part of a decade. He focuses his time on building world-class teams and go-to-market strategy. He has been instrumental in building Sonasoft’s new engineering team. Josh Rose was hired as Chief of Staff in Q4. He has a background in private equity. This experience has been invaluable as Sonasoft focuses on building new strategic partnerships. He has also been spearheading Sonasoft’s latest successful round of fundraising.
Sonasoft signs strategic partnership with a multi-billion dollar financial services company
2020 saw Sonasoft sign some key strategic partnerships. The biggest of these will see Sonasoft building AI bots for one of the world’s largest financial services companies, FIDELITY INVESTMENTS. This will place AI analytics at the very center of the financial data ecosystem. Clients of the partnership will see a transformation in how they can leverage financial data. This will see them transition to predictive and prescriptive analytics, making them more competitive than ever before. 2020 also saw Sonasoft complete a key AI project with Delaware Electric Cooperative (DEC). DEC is one of the largest utility cooperatives in the US. DEC sources its power from several providers. One of the biggest costs to their business is coincident peaks, which happen when there is a surge in demand. To try and control these costs, DEC issues “beat the peak” notices to its members, asking them to reduce consumption. Sonasoft developed a set of AI bots that are able to correctly predict these coincident peaks. In the first two months of going live, the bots demonstrated their ability to deliver annual cost savings of up to $1.3MM. Material Definitive Agreement with Fidelity to develop AI solutions Agreement announced in June 2020 with Google via their SEC filings
Sonasoft goes all in on AI
In 2020, Sonasoft continued its pursuit of completing its pivot from a services company to a pure AI company. This pivot from Sonasoft included an aggressive divestment policy as part of the long-term AI strategy. E-Connect Software Inc. and Sonavault were both sold to previous Company Officers, allowing Sonasoft to focus much more attention on AI, as well as saving some $250k in annual burn.
$FUBO / $NFLX Quick DD - The best value stock under $35 Ready To Explode
Listen up - We all know huge short interest is the new meme... Doesn't matter what stock, as long as its heavily shorted - Some way we will moon the fucker! Even better, an amazing company like $FUBO being shorted has real reason to sky-rocket. What we just saw with NFLX earnings & It's stock explosion paints a clear & vivid picture for what we will see with $FUBO... Not to mention their addition with Sports Betting makes it all the more juicy... This alone will cause a squeeze. Another Netflix in the MAKING. $FUBO Company announced on Jan 5th that it expects Q4 total revenue of $94M-$98M, up from its prior guidance of $80M-$85M Paid subscribers at year-end are seen exceeding 545K vs. prior guidance of 500K-510K or up more than 72% Y/Y. The best part is $FUBO has ALREADY squeezed once before! We saw this fucker go from $26/ share to over $60 in just a few days... All I'm saying is I rode the first rocket ship from $10 to $60 & want you autist included on this next squeeze. Wave Count by TheExtraIncome TradingView Additional DD below on Vigtory acquisition: FuboTV Inc. is buying an online sportsbook, a deal that makes the over-the-internet TV provider the latest sports- rich media company to invest in sports gambling in an effort to attract and retain viewers. The company said it is in the process of acquiring Vigtory Inc., a sportsbook that it eventually plans to integrate into its TV platform. Vigtory will also be available to those outside of the FuboTV subscriber base. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. In an interview, FuboTV Chief Executive David Gandler said he expects sports wagering to not only generate more revenue for FuboTV but also make it more likely that customers will pay closer attention to sports and tune in more often. The company also recently acquired Balto Sports, a company that develops tools for users to play fantasy sports. Sports content tends to be the most expensive on TV, which has led many internet-TV bundles to raise their prices. Over the past year, YouTube TV went from $50 a month to $65 and Hulu + Live TV from $55 to $65, while FuboTV raised the price of its standard package by $5 to $60 after it added a suite of Disney-owned channels including ESPN. - I know everyones a little pre-occupied with GME, BB, etc... Ik I am too - Loaded to the tits in shares/contracts but this play will be HUGE. Very Simple TL/DR: Buy Shares/contracts. I'm loaded on the following:
Tactical Nuclear Warheads and You: A Neheb, The Eternal Decklist/Primer
Hey you. Yeah, you. You tired of playing the same Golos deck, playing two lands a turn, drawing into your combo pieces, and winning while the entire table finishes War and Peace on their phones? You bored with your Sultai landfall deck, where you play solitaire for three hours? Board police getting too much to bear? Well, let me introduce you to your new best friend: [[Neheb, the Eternal]]. Now, if you've never seen Neheb before, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, that card looks absolutely absurd", and buddy, you're right. Neheb decks aren't as much EDH decks as they are high-score attempts, seeing how much damage they can dish out in a single turn. Damage doublers, triplers, pingers that only go face, and enough X spells to make Zaxara cry in a little Sultai corner. You want infinite combats? Neheb. You want to [[Comet Storm]] for 80? Neheb. You want to burn that lifegain deck right back to the pit it crawled out of? YOU WANT TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO ANYONE WHO DARES CONTINUE TO LIVE? N E H E B. STEP ONE: RAMP While Neheb himself is both a beeftank of a man and creates mana like he's eighty mountains strapped to a rocket sled, Neheb works best when he's out, and five mana isn't exactly cheap. So, what do we need? The standard rocks and ramp, like [[Sol Ring]], [[Wayfarer's Bauble]], [[Mind Stone]], [[Arcane Signet]], [[Ruby Medallion]], you get it. We do, however, run a few interesting ramp cards. [[Cryptolith Fragment]] comes in tapped, sure, but once we have our big Lazotep Lasher out, we can tap it for one mana in the main phase, and three (3!) mana in the 2nd main phase. The good news is that if it transformed, something has gone horribly wrong, so we're not even gonna talk about the back. If it does flip, though, nine mana in the 2nd main isn't bad at all. [[Everflowing Chalice]] isn't a rock, it's a bank. If you have a ton of mana floating in the second main, and you will, Everflowing Chalice is a way to keep some of it and use it on turns going forward. You can replace this with [[Horizon Stone]], I guess, but Everflowing is just a bit faster, and remember: Horizon Stone is based on Kruphix, and he's Simic, and we blow Simic players into small chunks. Oh, also, we have better Horizon Stone. THAT'S RIGHT WE HAVE [[Leyline Tyrant]] BABY. You want to float mana? Leyline Tyrant. You want an evasive beater? Leyline Tyrant. You want protection from removal in the form of Leyline Tyrant choosing violence and blowing up someone's face? Ley. Line. Tyrant. You want mana? You want it NOW? Cool. We got [[Seething Song]] and [[Jeska's Will]] for all your mana needs. Turn 2 Neheb is always a bucket of fun. Black can keep [[Dark Ritual]], I bet they're casting single target removal with it, what a bunch of nerds. Our mana doubler is [[Extraplanar Lens]] and [[Snow-Covered Mountains]]. We want mana. Not them. If they have snow-covered mountains, blow them up first. Cowards. [[Chandra, Torch of Defiance]] has two +1 abilities: gain red red, or deal two damage to each opponent, draw a card, and get six red mana. She's here for her good +1. Now that we have our mana online, let's talk about our two plans: Nukes and Dukes. STEP TWO: DUKES PART ONE: BOXING GLOVES Neheb is a commander that likes to attack. Once he's out, we're going to want to have him swing probably ever turn, because even if he's blocked he goes right over the top. The issue, however, is that while he has 6 toughness, that's not a lot going into the late game. So, we've got some boxing gloves for our beeftank. [[Darksteel Plate]] lets us not really worry about Neheb. Slap some darksteel on that lazotep and watch the haymakers fly. [[Sword of War and Peace]] and [[Sword of Sinew and Steel]] give him protection from white and black, and also importantly, RED. We can use our X spells that also hit creatures with impunity once we give Neheb one of his twin blades. [[Shadowspear]] gives Neheb trample, which lets him smack harder, and also, for two mana, you can remove indestructible and hexproof from an opponent's permanents. A glorious piece of tech. The lifelink can be nice, but it's, there to punch through. Speaking of punching through [[Embercleave]] needs no introduction. If you're turning something sideways, Embercleave is always a great way to make sure it damn well hurts. [[Swiftfoot Boots]] makes killing Neheb harder, and anything that makes Neheb stickier is good in my books. Haste is also an absolute plus. We don't have [[Lightning Greaves]] because we want to give Neheb more equipment than just lightning greaves, and shroud makes that harder than it needs to be. PART TWO: SIDEWAYS CREATURES If we're swinging more than once a turn, and we WILL be swinging more than once a turn, we want to swing with things that create effects that benefit from multiple combats. Enter our beaters: [[Tectonic Giant]] swings once and deals three damage to everyone, or impulse draws. You swing multiple times with him and with Neheb in play, and boy howdy did you just draw and make a ton of mana. An absolute unit of a card. [[Etali, Primal Storm]] is four free draws per swing. You swing multiple times with Stompy McCardsteal, and you've basically cast Villainous Wealth in red. [[Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion]] is both real and not impulse draw and mana ramp. Swing, dump bad cards, get mana, repeat. EZ Clap. PART THREE: TECHNICAL KNOCKOUT [[World at War]] and [[Savage Beating]] gives us extra combats, with World At War having rebound to guarantee us extra combat the next turn and Savage Beating giving us double strike to combat trick like an absolute madman if we need to really add insult to injury. [[Aggrivated Assault]] takes a small amount to explain. So, if we swing with Neheb, and he's unblocked, we get four mana. Tap a mountain, five mana, get an extra combat, swing with Neheb, go to the next main phase, EIGHT MANA, because Neheb cares about total damage of the turn, and checks every post-combat main phase, not your first one. That's right. We go infinite. Blow up the world, send out Neheb, and swing for infinite gaining infinite mana. Also do not shout the names of the cards in this section because most of them are absolutely crimes and your pod will call the cops to stop you from beating their life totals into the dirt. STEP THREE: NUKES PART ONE: PRIMING FOR FISSION Before we can bow up the world, we need to prime ourselves for it. To do this, we need to damage our opponents, and get our damage increasing abilities online. [[Acidic Soil]] and [[Price of Progress]] are pretty much free damage. That guy who spent all game mana fixing? Yeah, he's getting shot for 16. The Golos deck? 30. Acidic Soil is there because it also counts basics, so the budget player who thought he was safe can get slapped for daring to play Magic as well. [[Chandra's Ignition]] is 5 red mana for 12 red mana if you hit Neheb with it. It also board wipes. Slap it on Etali if you have protection for Neheb, and watch the world go down in fire. [[Flame Rift]], [[Slagstorm]], and [[Fiery Confluence]] hit our opponents for dirt cheap costs. Three mana to get nine mana? two mana and four life for 12 mana? Treasonous Ogre is crying, he's been unemployed. Fiery Confluence is also a board wipe and a removal spell, which is super neato, as we're a mono-colored deck, so our toolbox isn't super diverse. [[Combustible Gearhulk]] says "Give me draw or give me mana''. It's our Fact or Fiction, and much like Fact or Fiction, there are only bad answers. With an average CMC of 3, we're going to either draw three or get our mana back when someone takes 6 damage. [[Pyrohemia]] says "pay one red mana: Gain three red mana". It's literally just Dark Ritual that is also removal. If you can't see why that's good I have no idea what you're doing in a red burn deck explanation. [[Heartless Hidetsugu]] deals damage to each opponent equal to half their life total, rounded down. Deals damage. This isn't loss of life, this isn't 'becomes', Hidetsugu takes their life totals outside with a baseball bat and teaches it to fear the color red. Shadowspear on him makes you gain all the life they lost. If you have a damage doubler out, Hidetsugu says "Tap this creature, Win the Game." If he taps, and Neheb is out, one X spell almost guarantees a player death. PART TWO: ROCKET FUEL [[Torbran, Thane of Red Fell]] is not a damage doubler, but it does make our smaller pingers like Flame Rift, Fiery Confluence, and Pyrohemia absolutely backbreaking. Think of him as the initial charge. [[Insult // Injury]] often time reads "Pay 3 mana: Your next spell kills a player". Injury is nice, but we're really here for the cheap damage double and to stop any damage prevention shenanigans. We're casting Insult when we know we can go off. [[Fiery Emancipation]] Is here because, honestly, we make so much mana we'd be stupid not to run it. Six mana to triple damage when we make dozens of mana a turn is an incredible deal, and because it's one-sided, we don't have to worry about people killing us immediately with their tiny creatures. [[Furnace of Rath]] is two mana cheaper, yes, but importantly it doubles instead of triples, and also, uh, it doubles on US. We're trying not to self-destruct. PART FOUR: DETONATION [[Rolling Earthquake]] hits everything without horsemanship, so it hits everything. It's strictly better than Earthquake, because if we're casting an X spell, 80% of the time we're casting it because either A) We're about to lose or B) We're about to win. [[Molten Disaster]] has split second, which makes it uncounterable, unreturnable, and uninteractable. It's our "YOU DARE PLAY BLUE?!" card. [[Jaya's Immolating Inferno]] targets up to three targets. You will have three opponents in your pod. The math works. [[Comet Storm]] is flexible, in that if you've already blown someone to kingdom come, it costs one less mana! So that's nice! It's also great target removal, and great with our newest card... [[Toralf, God of Fury]]. Oh yeah. In this deck, a deck where we overkill everything, Toralf becomes an absolute monster. Earthquake everyone, and have the excess damage dealt to their creatures finish them off. The flip side of the card also goes mana-positive with Neheb, if we really need to get there and are just out of reach. This is a card this deck loves like your opponents love not being blown off the face of the earth by fireballs. PART FIVE: CLUSTER MUNITIONS [[Primal Amulet]] lets us copy our damage when it flips, and makes our damage spells cheaper before it does. It's easy to see why it's an all-star here. [[Reverberate]] lets us copy something. Sometimes it'll be the counter that's trying to stop Jaya's Immolating Inferno. Sometimes it'll be the Immolating Inferno itself. [[Reiterate]] is a multi-use reverberate, and we have the mana to use it. STEP 4: THE REST OF THE DECKThisIsn'tAStepButShhhhhh HASTE We want to give our creatures haste. [[Generator Servant]], [[Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded]], we can wheel away an [[Anger]] with ease, and [[Ogre Battledriver]] gives us a bit of oomph when our creatures enter the battlefield. Purphoros also functions as a sneak attack for when we want a creature to attack, but we don't have the mana to get it out. DRAW Look. We're in mono red, which means we have... one tutor that's halfway decent for our plan, and that's [[Gamble]]. We need draw. We're running a lot of it. [[Valakut Awakening]], [[Reforge the Soul]], [[Molten Psyche]], [[Magus of the Wheel]], [[Commune with Lava]], [[Cathartic Reunion]], [[Faithless Looting]] whatever we need to draw a whole ton, we have. The real all-star draw card is [[Knollspine Dragon]]. Draw equal to damage to target opponent? In a burn deck? In a burn deck where our burn makes mana? Oh baby you best believe that when you slam this puppy down people are going to quake in their boots. From the dragon. And maybe from the Rolling Earthquake. Or the Molten Disaster. Whatever. REMOVAL We're not running much actual removal, because, well, A: Mono Red, and B: We're a player removal deck. If you want board control, or if you want a deck that doesn't feel like piloting a crashing roller coaster that is currently on fire, go play [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]]. We're here for the boom boom. [[Vandalblast]] and [[Shattering Spree]] let us remove pesky artifacts, [[Blasphemous act]] removes board states for dirt cheap, and [[Chaos Warp]] lets us deal with one of anything. [[Deflecting Swat]] is for anyone trying to touch our Lazotep Loverboy or for stack interaction when our [[Pyroblast]] fails to stop a counter. LANDS [[Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx]] is pure gas, [[Ancient Tomb]] gets Neheb out fast, and [[Rogue's passage]] gets us through chump blockers and deathtouchers if we need to swing with Neheb. Other than that, it's mountains, a [[Myriad Landscape]], and a [[Smoldering Crater]] to remind our opponents of the fate that awaits them and also some draw if we need it. SIDEBOARD For some, four X spells isn't enough. [[Fall of the Titans]] and [[Earthquake]] are easy to slot in, and for those who want more combat, [[Fury of the Horde]] is easy enough to get. [[Mana Geyser]] is great against landfall decks, [[Red Elemental Blast]] is good if your meta includes people who try to stop you from throwing the sun at them (Cowards.). If you want more draw, [[Apex of Power]] is a free draw 10 spell, and [[Dragon Mage]] is a [[Wheel of Fortune]] on a stick. Well, Magus of the Wheel is Wheel of Fortune on a stick ALRIGHT YOU GET IT. UPGRADES The easiest upgrade path for this deck is fast mana. [[Mana Crypt]], [[Grim Monolith]], [[Mana Vault]], [[Jeweled Lotus]] the faster you can pump out Neheb the better. They're not on this list because they're pretty goddamn expensive, and if you turn two Neheb people are going to focus you into the absolute dirt. [[Doubling Cube]] is neat, but honestly, it's just a but overkill. Otherwise, upgrades include [[Wheel of Fortune]], your favorite EldraziTitan as a big ol' beater if you like the multiple combats, [[Sword of Fire and Ice]] is just the best damn sword we can get, and I'd say get [[Gauntlet of Might]] but for many people that card costs more than rent for the month, so just skip it. GAMEPLAN Step 1) Cast Neheb as fast as possible. Step 2) Deal symmetrical damage, swing in. Step 3) Go infinite with Aggressive Assault or cast a spell where X is, like, six trillion. We're not interested in things like "Midrange" or "Control". No. We're Neheb. We're here to get high scores on the "How much damage can I make without going infinite" leaderboards. This is not a deck that does anything besides slam into people. It explodes. It goes absolutely haywire, totally off the rails, you'll need a calculator to check your mana. This deck exists for one reason and one reason only: This deck is for Burn Timmies. Is it competitive? Eh. Does it win a lot? Eh. Does the fear in the eyes of your opponents make this deck worth it? Yes. For your consideration, Nuclear Neheb: https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1072303#NUCLEAR_NEHEB
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