Why Altria ($MO) LEAPs may have HUGE asymmetric upside 🚀🚀🚀
TL;DR: vaping, marijuana, Michael Burry, low as fuck IV, hugely under-valued company 🚀🚀🚀 \Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This is not investment advice. All information stated in this post is my own opinion, and some information may be unknowingly inaccurate or outdated. Please do your own due diligence before investing your money. I currently hold a long position on various Altria LEAPs.** Nicotine products have been in continuous use in North America for thousands of years [1]. Upon the arrival of the Spanish to the New World, tobacco use spread rapidly throughout the globe, becoming hugely popular not only across Europe, but also in far-flung Asia and the Ottoman Empire. The only comparable product to conquer the world so thoroughly is the ubiquitous, similarly addictive, mighty coffee bean. By the 1900's, smoking had become a huge commercial enterprise. Glitz and glam surrounded the tobacco industry. All of your Grandmother's favorite actors smoked [2]. Many high schools had smoking lounges for the students (of course, your Nana still regularly snuck out behind the bleachers to have a private puff with the quarterback). Nicotine use was a normal and accepted part of life. We are all, of course, familiar with the rest of the story. Studies came out showing just how damaging cigarette usage was on the human body. Campaigns were begun, laws were enacted, and Big Tobacco became Public Enemy #1 [3] Fast forward to today. For the past few decades, despite decreasing cigarette volumes, the tobacco industry has remained immensely profitable. Big players in the cigarette industry have been able to compensate for declining cigarette volumes by raising prices. Cash flows from cigarette smoking have never been higher. Yet looking at the stock market performance of the tobacco industry over the past 5 years, you would think that the industry was on life support. No company has lately fared worse than Altria ($MO). Despite growing income at a 5.9% CAGR since 2017 amid a backdrop of stabilizing declines in cigarette consumption [4], the company's stock remains 45% off its 2017 high. Much of the underperformance can be attributed to investors losing confidence in the company's management after a series of questionable investment decisions, including taking a 35% stake in JUUL, a 45% stake in Chronos (a Canadian marijuana company), and a 10% stake in Anheuser-Busch. These investments have performed poorly over the past few years. High-profile teen deaths from illicit THC vaping products were widely linked to JUUL usage by our sensationalist media [5], causing Altria to write-down its initial $12B investment in JUUL to a value of only ~$2B today. The bubble in the marijuana stock market popped in 2018, causing a 30% reduction in the value of Altria's Chronos stake. And the rise of the craft beer industry has continued to weigh on the profitability of Anheuser-Busch. Despite the short-term pitfalls, I will argue that it is reasonable to believe that Altria has positioned itself very well for the future. And with all of these factors weighing down the stock over the past few years, I believe $MO is ripe for a turnaround. I have a 2023 price target for $MO of $90 which, given the low IV Altria enjoys, implies a 30x (3,000%) return on MO Jan 2023 65c LEAPs. My thesis relies on four key beliefs: ​
The company's core business is under-valued
Vaping will see a resurgence as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes
Altria is poised to win big if marijuana is federally legalized
Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management is heavily invested in $MO
1) The Company's core business is under-valued Altria enjoys a stunningly low forward P/E of 8.7 and a stunningly high dividend yield of 8.1% [6]. Various online discounted cash flow analyses of Altria give it an intrinsic value between $62-$72 [7][8]. These analyses are very conservative in that they only take into account Altria's current business, which is predominantly smokeable tobacco products. There are also bright spots in Altria's miscellaneous businesses that these DCF models don't account for, such as the fast-growing "on!" line of nicotine pouches, or the likely reinstatement of Anheuser-Busch's dividend after it was paused last year due to Covid. We'll ignore these bright spots for now and give Altria's core business a conservative price target of $65. 2) Vaping will see a resurgence as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes \Please note: I am not a doctor. All health claims made in this post reflect only my own opinions.** Nicotine has gotten a bad rap in the past 50 years, but on its own there isn't much research I've seen to suggest it's any more dangerous than caffeine. The big problem with nicotine is simply the delivery mechanism. Smoking large amounts of anything is bad for your lungs. Vaping exposes your lungs to far fewer ancillary chemicals in much smaller doses than traditional smoking. For instance, Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, says about vaping “there’s almost no doubt that they expose you to fewer toxic chemicals than traditional cigarettes.” [9] Altria surveyed the landscape in 2017 and determined that acquiring a stake in JUUL was its best way to position itself for the future. Since then, JUUL's name has been dragged through the mud and associated with many teen deaths. However, these deaths were later determined to be caused by unauthorized THC products unlinked to JUUL [10]. JUUL's case for harm reduction in the nicotine space is still intact. The FTC filed an anti-trust case recently attempting to block Altria's stake in JUUL [11]. This case is due to be heard this spring. The uncertainty around JUUL's future has weighed on $MO, but in my opinion all outcomes of this case are positive: 1) Altria is forced to divest its stake in JUUL This is not ideal, but as part of the JUUL acquisition, Altria agreed to not compete in the vaping space against JUUL. If Altria is forced to divest, it can capitalize on the recent decline in the quality and brand value of JUUL (just check out juul to see the declining sentiment around the brand) to bring its own high-quality product onto the market. 2) Altria is allowed to keep its stake in JUUL In this case, Altria can capitalize on JUUL's troubles by acquiring a larger stake in the company at a discount. Altria can then flood JUUL with the cash it needs to help rebuild its quality and brand. This is the ideal case in my opinion, for both JUUL and Altria. Setting aside JUUL for the moment, Altria has the exclusive rights to distribute in the USA Phillip Morris's FDA-approved IQoS product [12]. This is a "heat not burn" product that is more similar to existing cigarettes than vaping, but still reduces the number of harmful chemicals inhaled. This product is already popular in Europe and Japan, and is just beginning to be marketed in the USA. One major advantage of this product is that it produces no smoke, and so may potentially end up being allowed in restaurants, bars, and offices. 3) Altria is poised to win big if marijuana is federally legalized Altria is the one company with the regulatory experience and distribution networks necessary to gain substantial market share in the nascent marijuana industry. Altria has been quietly filing patent after patent for THC and CBD vaping devices [13]. In fact, people in the fledgling marijuana industry are so worried about Altria's entry into the market that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, when speaking about his upcoming federal legalization bill, recently said "I don’t want to see these big tobacco companies coming in and shoving everyone out" [14]. (Note however that, while this position may play well with Senator Schumer's base for now, having a marijuana industry that is run by well-established and responsible companies is ultimately the best outcome for public health, and so it is unlikely that any steps will be taken to bar Altria from competing in the free market of marijuana products). 4) Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management is heavily invested in $MO Would this really be WallStreetBets if I didn't mention Michael Burry? Burry's fund Scion Asset Management had 5% of its portfolio in $MO as of Q3 2020, making Altria its 13th largest holding [[15](https://dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=SAM). For context, this is about half the weight that Michael Burry's fund had in GameStop during the same quarter. If nothing else, this is a good sanity check on the analysis here. Summary In summary, it's likely that the true value of Altria's core business is closer to $65 than the current price of $43. Add on top of that the potential for success in the vaping category, and the potential for growth into the marijuana market, and it is easy to see $MO adding an additional 20-30B in market cap to reach a price of $90 by 2023. IV for 2023 LEAPs sits at ~20%. MO Jan 2023 65c's are currently priced at $0.77. If Altria reaches $90 by 2023, these options will be worth at least $25. This would represent a >3,100% return. For this reason, I believe that Altria LEAPs represent a unique opportunity for asymmetric upside. Please let me know your thoughts below, I'd appreciate counter-arguments that highlight any flaws in the reasoning outlined above.
$HCMC Healthier Choices Management Corp stock complete DD Package+Filed big lawsuite against Philip Morris $PM Nov30th '20/ pennystock exempt!
$HCMC
-60+ patents
-Pink Current
-pennystock Exempt
-MarketCap $665million
>Feb.8 2021 HCMC ANNOUNCES SALES OF $5,000,000 OF PREFERRED STOCK
February 7, 2021, Healthier Choices Management Corp. (the “Company”) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement, pursuant to which the Company sold and issued 5,000 shares of its Series D Convertible Preferred Stock (the “Preferred Stock”) to institutional investors for $1,000 per share or an aggregate subscription of $5,000,000. https://finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/hcmc-announces-sale-5-000-130500804.html?__twitter_impression=true / / /
>Aug.24th, 2020 Secured $2.5million in financing for their #PPE initiative.
"We identified a NICHE market that needs servicing, and we intend to take an ‘old school’ approach of building a consistent book of business for this initiative. The industry has been inundated with “spot sales”, often attempting to sell product that does not exist. We intend to eliminate this issue by having inventory in our warehouse, READY to ship.” “All types of businesses now need these products. Smaller health facilities need these products. Smaller businesses like restaurant chains and service industries need these products, and they cannot buy 1,000,000 boxes of gloves or 1,000,000 masks as is typically required. WE HAVE HAD NUMEROUS REWQUESTS TO FILL THESE ORDERS and intend to cater to this niche and help as many of these types of customers as we can.” https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/24/2082593/0/en/Healthier-Choices-Management-Corp-Secures-2-5M-financing-for-PPE-Initiative.html /
>A leader in the #CBD Vape industry! The Q-Cup can be used for Marijuana & CBD!
/ /
>Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Healthier Choices Management Corp. (OTC Pink: HCMC) today announced that it has entered into a distribution agreement with MJ Holdings Inc.
This is from the recent SEC filing of the OTC stock VPRB! On September 6, 2018, the Company issued the Amended and Restated Secured Promissory Note in the principal amount of $582,260 (the “A&R Note”). The principal amount of the A&R Note represents (i) $500,000 which Healthier Choices Management Corp. (HCMC) loaned to the Company on September 6, 2018, and (ii) $82,260, which represents the aggregate amount owed by the Company under the Original Notes as of September 6, 2018. The A&R Note, which has a maturity date of September 6, 2021, had the effect of amending and restating the Note and bears interest at the rate of 7% per annum. Pursuant to the terms of the A&R Note, the Company agreed to pay HCMC 155 weekly payments of $4,141, commencing on September 14, 2018 and #ENDING on September 14, 2021, and a balloon payment for all remaining accrued interest and principal in the 156th week. The Company at its option has the right, by giving 15 business days’ advance notice to HCMC, to prepay a portion or all amounts outstanding under the A&R Note without penalty or premium. The balance of the note as of September 30, 2020 was $314,247.
/ /
>BIG Lawsuit against $PM for patent infringements, and patent 170 The Q-Cup is part of it. [www.TheQCup.com]
$PM has untill the Feb26th to submit their answer. Been researching/ alerting this since Nov.30th & theirs rumors the answer is a settlement!
>Lawyers representing HCMC have been awarded as the #1 lawfirm of the year amongst dozens of other awards. You think they would take on PM A big Pharma company & risk their reputation if they had even the slightest chance of losing? No they wouldn't. [www.cozen.com]
/ /
>Millions in annual revenue from 13Vape stores, 3 Paradise Health & Nutrition stores, 3 Adas Fresh Market, online Vape & CBD retailers, online health & nutrition retailers, and much much more!
>In the lawsuite their is 2 defendants named; Philip Morris USA & Philip Morris International! So technically it'll be a 2 for 1 win! Double the judgement too if look at it that way.
>Jan. 29th update to lawsuite:Judge approved PM request for a extension to submit their answer saying by February 26th now:" So that both defendants can submit their answer at the same time"Court also said no jury trials untill April now. HCMC said in their initial motion that they demand there be a jury trial for settling judgements. So PM better offer a big enough settlement to avoid that.
/
-Rumors going around about the April deadline date. That is when jury trials can resume. Because courts have suspended all Jury Trials due to COVID-19 until April 18th. People been getting confused and people spreading false information on purpose. So as of right now the only date on the case is the February 28th due date of Philip Morris's answer.
Once that is submitted, wether it be a settlement or accepting what they have done or deny the motion against them of infringing on HCMC's patents, than they will schedule the next court date. / /
THINK ABOUT AFTER HCMC WINS THE LAWSUITE AGAINST PM.
THEY'LL ASK HCMC TO LICENSE OUT THE PATENTS THEY HAVE INFRINGED ON! THEIR IQOS PRODUCT HAS 14MILLION + USERS, SO I DOUB'T THEY WOULD WANT TO ABANDON THAT REVENUE STREAM! THEY HAVE DOZENS OF ACTIVE TRADEMARKS FOR THE IQOS PRODUCT, AND PAYING HCMC TO USE IT IS THEIR BEST CHOICE! YOU THINK HCMC GOING TO GIVE THEM A DEAL, LOL HECK NO. THE MONEY FROM THIS LAWSUITE IS GOING TO MAKE IT THE BIGGEST LAWSUITE IN THE #OTC ! AND I BEEN TRADING SINCE I WAS 15, AND IN 16YRS NEVER SEEN A STOCK SO CHEAP, PINK CURRENT+PENNYSTOCK EXEMPT, 60+ PATENTS AND ALREADY LICENSES OUT MANY OF THEM! I BET LOTS OF #VAPE PRODUCTS IN THE MARKET ARE FROM COMPANYS PAYING LICENSING RIGHTS FROM $HCMC!!! / / / PLZ SHARE & UPVOTE! I HAVE SPENT 100S OF HOURS ON RESEARCH FOR THIS STOCK & CONTINUE TO DO SO. SINCE I STARTED TRADING WHEN I WAS 15, NOW 30, I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A GREAT STOCK, WITH A BIG LAWSUITE SO CHEAP! / /
>I have full access to court records. As documents are submitted for the case etc, I'll update them here accordingly. STAY TUNED!
Additional support, resources, & DD by WallStreetBets+OTHERS:
WSB is behind HCMC NOW!
$WallStreetbetsELITE: "CONGRATULATIONS TO $HCMC!! You have been accepted into the AMC AND GME COMMUNITY BY ALMOST 1000 VOTES!!! HCMC will now be the stock to promote with AMC guys HOLD THE LINE and respect this honor. We will together destroy Wallstreet and hedges! Much love."
THE CALL (READ) $HCMC TO TH MOON! The below posts are all timestamped it is a timeline of older $HCMC DD + my thoughts back in 2020 about $HCMC and what was going to happen before all the hype and media frenzy and hubaloo... O_O and now here we are today. read if you are interested its long just a warning near the end is a monster DD post i did that was reposted on the wall here that many people read cheshirechocobo Monday, 12/28/20 11:12:53 AM Re: None 0 Post # 20121 of 30551 IMO people in the inner circle of HCMC know a little more about this than they are letting on but the volume and money is talking. Methinks the HCMC Lawyers are working overtime because if the case was falling through so would the volume... IMO The big Lawsuit people are talking about is between HCMC vs Phillip Morris for those who are new here and are curious. I think HCMC is on top of this very much because "intellectual property" is a main part of their platform and if someone else infringed on one of their patents that they conceive / design / develop they are in the position to take action against that. https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/hcmc-announces-formation-of-intellectual-property-holding-subsidiary-2020-12-14) (Copied - + more there is even more info in the full article - follow the link to read- ) HOLLYWOOD, FL, Dec. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Healthier Choices Management Corp. (OTC Pink: HCMC) (“HCMC or the “Company”) announces that it has formed a new wholly owned subsidiary to hold, market and expand on its intellectual property assets. This subsidiary, HCMC Intellectual Property Holdings, LLC, will own all of the patents, trademarks and other intellectual property of HCMC. HCMC currently owns a portfolio of patents related to both vape technology and also manufacturing processes and procedures for an imitation nicotine product. HCMC’s focus with this new subsidiary is to invest in innovation and encourage further development of core intellectual property. “The creation of a separate intellectual property holding entity allows us to efficiently market, license and otherwise capitalize on our growing intellectual property portfolio,” said Jeff Holman, CEO of HCMC. Mr. Holman concluded, “We feel that we can use HCMC Intellectual Property Holdings to further implement our strategic plan and better capture opportunities to monetize both technology that HCMC has already developed over the years, as well as technology that we will continue to develop into the future.” https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/hcmc-announces-formation-of-intellectual-property-holding-subsidiary-2020-12-14 HCMC is BIG on their patents and intellectual property. If someone steals your intellectual property or develops something you already patented then you can then legally sue them...by doing this you can in theory make more money suing someone for copyright infringement on intellectual property than you can on the infringed product in question At that point you don't even have to develop the initial idea to make money. AND THEN After the settlement from a victorious case... You can then use the money from the lawsuit to develop your business / product. lololol (that makes me smile) IMO as always but this is what I see thoughts? (THIS BRACKET IS ME REFLECTING FOR A SEC IN 2021...might as well be a time traveler LOL OK KEEP READING THAT WAS A BRAIN BREAK) cheshirechocobo Monday, 12/28/20 01:06:15 PM Re: BJ-Trader post# 20122 0 Post # 20138 of 30551 This is what I see 110 000 000 x.0001 = 11,000,000$ (seems like alot) BUT!!!!! HCMC IS SUING Philip Morris OVER THE IQOS System The IQOS heated tobacco units have become the third biggest tobacco brand behind Philip Morris' industry leading Marlboro and Imperial Brands' Winston. IQOS now has a 5.5% share of the global tobacco market, even though it hasn't been fully rolled out in a number of the 52 markets it's been introduced into. Smoking alternatives heat up the market There are now 13.6 million users of the IQOS,(at 100$ per unit making 1 360 000 000 $) that's 4 million more users than a year ago, and Philip Morris estimates 71% of them (around 10 million people) have stopped smoking and permanently switched to the device. If Philip Morris are found guilty of patent infringement on every single sale of every single IQOS unit... They have to cough up a massive chunk if not all of a 5.5 % share in the entire global tobacco market...of planet earth... over to HCMC. A scenario like that would defiantly cover it... DD for ya Healthier Choices Management Corp. Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Philip Morris November 30, 2020 17:00 ET | Source: Healthier Choices Management Corp HOLLYWOOD, FL, Nov. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Healthier Choices Management Corp announced the filing of its patent infringement lawsuit against Philip Morris USA, Inc. and Philip Morris Products S.A. in connection with their product known and marketed as “IQOS®.” The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court For the Northern District Of Georgia. HCMC vs Phillip Morris Lawsuit filing https://sec.report/Document/0000844856-20-000047/ The international law firm Cozen O’Connor has been engaged to represent HCMC in this matter. https://www.cozen.com/ (MONSTERS ^ ) HCMC’s lawsuit includes claims that Phillip Morris is infringing HCMC’s patent rights in connection with IQOS®, an alternative tobacco product marketed and sold by Phillip Morris. Philip Morris claims that it is currently approaching 14 million users of its IQOS® product and has reportedly invested over $3 billion in their smokeless tobacco products. Philip Morris has been very open about their ongoing transition from traditional fully combustible cigarettes to their modified risk tobacco products, including IQOS®. https://www.pmi.com/faq-section/faq/what-is-iqos clearly covered http://www.healthiercmc.com/patents The Philip Morris IQOS® product is currently the subject of two other patent infringement proceedings filed by RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. One proceeding is before the International Trade Commission and seeks to stop the importation of the IQOS® product into the United States. (added)THE INTERNATION TRADE COMMISION / FDA proceeding for the sale and distribution of IQOS system in the united states was in fact just recently approved. https://www.pmi.com/media-centenews/the-fda-authorizes-the-sale-of-iqos-3-in-the-us ; the other is a patent infringement action currently pending in the Eastern District of Virginia. RJ Reynolds’ patents are unrelated and not affiliated with the patents asserted in the HCMC case. “We are pleased that after a lengthy and careful analysis, a law firm with the patent litigation reputation and strength of Cozen O’Connor will be enforcing our patent rights,” said Jeff Holman, CEO of HCMC. Mr. Holman concluded, “We look forward to proving our allegations of infringement in this matter and intend to continue to move forward against any and all companies that infringe upon our intellectual property in both the tobacco and cannabis categories.” HCMC is in the right here... FYI an IQOS system costs 100$ 13.6 million users all payed 100$ or 99 euros so 13.6 million users x 100S per unit as of feb 2020 (#'s don't reflect all the new users between feb to now either so the number is larger) There are now 13.6 million users of the IQOS, 4 million more than a year ago, and Philip Morris estimates 71% of them (around 10 million people) have stopped smoking and permanently switched to the device. As of Feb 10, 2020 At this point almost a year later they have even more users and now FDA approval for sale running around flag shipping the IQOS System that is in fact actually HCMC's patented intellectual property. If or when PM ends up on the block and are forced to pay up on those kind of numbers to HCMC. The more greedy they get(and you know they are greedy) the more in the end they owe to HCMC and also the IQOS system that is actually HCMC's intellectual property is now FDA approved for sale in the US. (thanks to PM lol ) cheshirechocobo Wednesday, 12/30/20 10:56:17 PM Re: Badge04 post# 20507 0 Post # 20508 of 30551 MY POINT EXACTLY...If everything clicks for HCMC's legal team and the case goes through they will get rid of the float faster than you can spin your head. I think they already are even? If it all goes down in HCMC's favor and this will blow up so monster it will become an OTC legend. If you picked up .0001's on HCMC and held out on this it could change your life. HCMC can buy out the whole floor after the settlement and if the people involved high up / HCMC's legal team already know how it's going to work out in the end they could be getting an early start not waiting for the courts, to begin enacting their plan and as for .0001's / .0002's they wont even exist afterword's if that is the case they will be a thing of legend as well. No guarantees but man you could almost make a movie out of the story developing around this, at least a documentary. At .0001 / .0002 tickets to the show are nothing compared to the ROI potential. cheshirechocobo Monday, 12/28/20 02:26:15 PM Re: None 0 Post # 20155 of 30551 A theory HCMC would be smart to keep surprising the price until the court case settles and they then buy up their own shares at .0001 with the money from the settlement. That scenario would explain why so much volume yet no movement. If HCMC runs up before the court case ends they can't buy their own shares for .0001 . So they keep it as low as possible and load it until they are ready to buy themselves for .0001 with money from the court settlement funds. Anyone holding when that happens would just jump up along with the massive big block buys that would follow and HCMC has a massive rocket ride. That's also how they can own a lot of themselves moving ahead into the future thoughts? cheshirechocobo Tuesday, 12/29/20 12:40:55 PM Re: RoidBoi44 post# 20268 0 Post # 20276 of 30551 ok Roidboi ... look... I don't have a chalk board so I cant draw it out for you but.. HCMC will be able buy out their own bottom floor shares with IQOS Patent lawsuit settlement money. HCMC sues PM and then all of a sudden HCMC has billions and billions in volume everyday... I believe HCMC are the ones who will end up with the money to move it and that is why there is so much because its not for us to move its for them to get the lowest price possible on their own shares. In doing so they will own themselves protecting / controlling their own shares from the bottom. They will then drive the price up as much as possible to give those shares maximum potential value in the future. This is how an OTC company jumps up on to Nasdaq level. "The Come up" as it is said. Phillip Morris is under the gun because they used HCMC's technology (q-cup) in their IQOS vape system. I suspect they had .0001s reserved for themselves in priority somehow hence the cancelation of everyone's orders on multiple trade platforms even though 0.0001 were reading as available... This is all IMO but the writing is literally on the wall. The Volume here to me is the dead giveaway Someone's moving the cart along... Unicorn Potential END TIMELINE The above posts are all timestamped is a timeline of my thoughts back in 2020 about HCMC and what was going to happen before all the hype and media frenzy and hubaloo... O_O and now here we are today I'll let you decide if you think I called this one ;) <3 I'm not even going to claim it... This was the big post I mentioned about reposting and as a reward if you make it through all of this I will be reposting New DD and theory This was the post that I believe opened some eyes. as follows HCMC Q-Cup Tech Patent = Phillip Morris IQOS System Flagship next gen vape product being heavily pushed and marketed over 16 million + units already sold globally as of 2020 (the year isn't even over) So HCMC owns the patent for the technology being used and sold in Phillip Morris's "IQOS" - E cigarette technology The accused action is illegal The IQOS system is a major money maker for Phillip Morris having sold 16.4 million units globally as of now. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/will-rrps-growth-keep-driving-philip-morris-pm-in-2021-2020-12-28 Copied from above link (more in article)^ Tobacco companies have long been struggling with declining cigarette sales, thanks to consumers’ rising health consciousness as well as strict marketing and manufacturing policies imposed by regulatory authorities. Amid such a scenario, industry players like Philip Morris International Inc. PM are managing to stay afloat on the back of growth in low-risk tobacco alternatives. Additionally, gains from effective pricing strategies have been an upside. Let’s take a closer look. RRPs Are a Key Growth Catalyst Philip Morris is committed toward developing a smoke-free future by expanding offerings in the reduced-risk products (RRPs) category. These products, owing to their beneficial claims, are largely being accepted by individuals trying to quit or reduce cigarette consumption. Philip Morris is one of the industry pioneers in driving the shift from cigarettes to RRPs. The company’s IQOS is one of the leading RRPs in the industry. IQOS was launched in the United States in 2019, through a commercial deal with Altria Group, Inc. MO that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We note that IQOS is currently the only heat-not-burn product in the U.S. market, which has been approved by the FDA. Since the onset of the pandemic, the switch from smoking cigarettes to RRPs has been trending positively. Total users of IQOS at the end of third-quarter 2020 were estimated to be about 16.4 million globally. (So 16.4 million units x 100$ per unit = 1640000000$) In the said quarter, revenues in the RRPs category increased 28.6% and formed a little more than 23% of the company’s top line. The company expects consistent growth in the heated tobacco category, and therefore has been committed toward expanding these products. Earlier this month, the company’s IQOS 3 received authorization from the FDA for sale in the United States. The new device incorporates a number of technological improvements like enhanced battery life and quicker recharge. In prior efforts, the company started commercializing IQOS VEEV, which is its new product in the vapor category. The company also announced a partnership with South Korea’s KT&G earlier this year to commercialize the latter’s smoke-free products outside the country. Clearly, such efforts are likely to keep bolstering Philip Morris’ revenues from the RRPs space. Markedly, the company is on track to achieve its 2021 goal of > 90-100 billion < (WOW) shipments of heated tobacco units. (end copy) So... HCMC is suing Philip Morris because HCMC developed the patent ("Q-Cup") that is the same technology being used in the IQOS system now being pushed heavily by Phillip Morris and was approved back in 2018. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/healthier-choices-management-corp-issued-three-u-s-patents-in-relation-to-its-q-cup-technology-1027675756 http://www.healthiercmc.com/news/2018/9/24/hcmc-announces-us-patent-for-its-q-cup-technology-will-be-granted-in-60-90-days http://www.healthiercmc.com/patentshttps://theqcup.com/pages/patents So for those who don’t know yet. Healthier Choice Management Corp (HCMC) are suing Philip Morris for copyright infringement on their (HCMC's) patent regarding (Phillip Morris's) IQOS - E cigarettes (now being sold like hotcakes by Phillip Morris.) According to Phillip Morris they haven’t denied this fact by revealing they invested over 3 billion so far into marketing these new E-Cigarette products including the contested IQOS. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/30/2136949/0/en/Healthier-Choices-Management-Corp-Files-Patent-Infringement-Lawsuit-Against-Philip-Morris.html HCMC hired the law firm COZEN to pursue these claims. I have attached some links below for further research into the future value of E-cigarettes. https://www.cozen.com/ If Philip Morris is found guilty and liable of patent infringement it means they illegally sold 16.4 million units of the IQOS system. + the 2021 goal of 100 billion units and any other profits linked to IQOS related profits would be forfeit and owed to HCMC in some form. That is just mind blowing Philip Morris is moving forward with their marketing campaign despite the lawsuit even receiving FDA approval for large scale sales of the IQOS system in the United States despite the HCMC lawsuit. If Phillip Morris are found guilty the more profit they make on the IQOS system in the end just digs Phillip Morris a deeper hole as a climbing pay back price tag. https://www.pmi.com/media-centenews/the-fda-authorizes-the-sale-of-iqos-3-in-the-us $HCMC = 0.0001$ = David PM =$82+ = Goliath LOOK AT THE VALUE $_$ David The Shepherd had to defeat the Philistine's and Goliath before becoming David, King of Israel. All my posts here are pre 2021 and now look what has happened now that we are here Source of " Additional info from Ihub"
GME Tribe: A Story About How Ryan Cohen is About to Kick Down Sherman's Door and Drink His Milkshake 🚀🚀🚀
Come gather ‘round GME management wherever you roam.And admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth saving, then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin’. Story time for the GME crew. All those who are certain tHis iS bLoCkBusTer or the paper hands that sold yesterday can just keep scrolling. We wish you the best of luck in the best of all possible worlds: this one, dear Pangloss. **I’ve tried to submit this three times now and the moderators keep rejecting it. Maybe because I use too many naughty words? I guess I’ll try to clean that up a bit, which runs counter to all my instincts. Did we have a good day Wednesday after that Q3 call? No, we did not. Do you know who lost over $20M (at least on paper) yesterday? Mr. Ryan Cohen. How do you think he felt about that CC and that inexplicable shelf registration that is, as one stocktwits commentator put it, a “poor man’s poison pill” and as obvious of a FU to Cohen and shareholders that the Board could have possibly designed? Do you think he was happy to see that? I think he was thrilled to see it. And now I’m going to tell you why. This is a long post, so I’m going to give the TL/DR sum up for you Paste Eating Rocket Kids, and this will serve as a warning that there are, in fact, a lot of words that you may choose to read or not. So if I still see one goddamn comment about this being a lot of words and where’s the rockets maaaaan, I might just transport myself through this internet connection and [removed to satisfy the delicate sensibilities of the robot moderators]. So here’s the TL/DR: I believe that Cohen is executing a plan to take out the GME Board. And I think that Sherman just walked right into Cohen’s trap because he’s a dumb, selfish Boomer with a huge ego and a Broken Brain. And Cohen is going to be a legend because of it after he executes this plan, triggers the MOASS, and takes control of GME to convert it to a tech-first gaming juggernaut. Now, if you’re in on this GME shit, you likely know the outlines of the story here. But here’s a good link to refresh your memory about why we’re all here: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/k4csaa/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century_part/ And for further background, my recent post about the battle here between George Sherman, out-of-touch Hired Gun B&M Boomer CEO with the Boomer-est of all possible Boomer names, and Ryan Cohen, Boy Genius, Actual Good Guy, and Man With The Chewy-fication Plan: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/k9apx5/gme_q3_call_thoughts_on_the_clash_between_cohen/ So: are we ready to start READING and THINKING, children? Good. Now what were you doing in the summer of 2020? I don’t give a shit what you were doing. But I do give a shit about what Ryan Cohen was doing. And there is a decent amount of evidence that Ryan Cohen spent the summer of 2020 hiring a bad ass lawyer and crafting a pretty solid plan to wrest control of a struggling Mall-based gaming retailer from its out of touch Boomer Board and CEO so he can turn it into an ecommerce juggernaut like his baby Chewy. And I think we are about to enter the next phase of that plan here shortly. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first all get acquainted with Christopher P. Davis, Esquire, the attorney listed on each of the 13Ds filed by RC Ventures. Chris Davis, Activist Attorney Extraordinaire and His Successful Use of the Consent Solicitation to Remove Dipshit Boards/CEOs To cut to the chase, Chris Davis (who is definitely NOT the same dude playing first base for the Orioles) is a badass NYC attorney recently recognized as one of the nation’s premier shareholder activist lawyers. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kleinberg-kaplan-partner-chris-davis-recognized-by-chambers-usa-as-leading-shareholder-activist-lawyer-301090571.html. So what was Chris Davis doing in the summer of 2020? So glad you asked. He was celebrating a major win he helped engineer on behalf of a “first time activist Michael Gorzynski” for a wholesale replacement of the sitting Board at HC2 Holdings, Inc (sounds fancy). He helped engineer this takeover via a “high stakes consent solicitation rather than the more typical proxy contest.” Learn more about this here: https://www.kkwc.com/insights/kleinberg-kaplan-advises-mg-capital-management-in-its-consent-solicitation-and-successful-settlement-with-hc2-holdings/ Here’s a few more links if you care to learn more about that and how it all went down (spoiler alert: the activists settled for two seats on the Board and then the new Board very quickly ousted the dipshit Boomer CEO, Phil Falcone) http://www.shareholderforum.com/shfk/Library/20200611_II.htm http://www.shareholderforum.com/access/Library/20200219_Deal.htm In sum: if you look into Chris Davis, you can see that this guy is dialed the fuck in and knows how to get activist shareholders a win—even in very challenging circumstances. The Summer of ’20 Out-of-the-Blue Boy Genius Media Campaign and Cohen’s 13D Filing in August I’m going to return to the “consent solicitation” thing at the bottom and why I think it matters here, but I don’t want to lose momentum on the timeline and evidence. And the consent solicitation is Advanced Level Shit that I barely understand anyway. But I think it’s likely to be goddamn important so I’ll get to it. Now, where were we? Oh yes, the inexplicable media campaign. RC Ventures files its 13D on August 18th announcing that Ryan Cohen is now the proud owner of 5.8M shares or 9% (later increased to 9.8%) of That Cluttered Video Game Geekery You Used to Pass on Your Way to Jamba Juice or Wherever People Go in Malls. Uh, ok man. But then this is when the SP of this Future Blockbuster™ starts its real run as more catch on that Cohen has taken a huge stake and that is also part of the portfolio of Mr. Big Short himself and a bunch of institutions and they actually have cash and are definitely not going bankrupt and oh have you heard about the insane short percentage of float and the upcoming console cycle that invariably corresponds to a sharp spike in SP? Well have you? But to return to the point: RC was and is the largest shareholder. But prior to the date Cohen filed his 13D, there is a renewed media campaign focused on Ryan Cohen, Ecommerce Billionaire Genius who built Chewy, kicked Amazon’s ass, and then sold it for $3.35B way back in the heady mask-free days of ‘17. Why the sudden re-emergence of Mr. Cohen in the summer of 2020 in such a prominent way with this glowing media campaign about a guy who sold a very successful pet supply business over three years ago? Fawning media exposure like that doesn’t just happen (or not usually). It’s engineered. Or, more charitably, helped along by people who know people and can introduce those people to Interesting Topics to Write About. And my guess is that Chris Davis, bad ass activist attorney based in New York City, Knows People and had a little something to do with it. Here are the links to all of the glowing media pieces starting in the summer of 2020 (all absolutely worth a read to get to know who this guy is and what makes him tick): June 5 (Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/chewy-founder-cashes-out-bets-on-apple-wells-fargo August 4 (CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/04/chewy-co-founder-ryan-cohen-this-is-the-side-hustle-id-start-now.html August 16 (Forbes) https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/16/entrepreneur-chewy-founder-ryan-cohen-shares-his-best-advice/?sh=41e1370e5840 October 15 (Business Insider) https://www.businessinsider.com/chewy-ryan-cohen-warren-buffett-lessons-apple-investment-2020-10 And a lot of the speculation I’m wheeling and dealing here was introduced by our man Justin Dopierala at Seeking Alpha way back in a September article not too long after the 13D filings: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4373819-gamestop-chewys-founder-ryan-cohen-finds-whats-next But for now let’s “put a pin” on Mr. Dopierala, as George Sherman or some other Corporate Robot Dipshit might say, as he will be important to the story here again soon. The November 16th “F U Old Man” Letter If you haven’t read this ballsy letter Cohen wrote to the Board last month, you really should. We’ll wait for you. https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/RC_Ventures_Letter_to_GameStop.pdf OK, ready again? I don’t want to question Cohen’s possible writing abilities or give away too many tricks of the lawyer trade here (AI should take care of that in about a decade), but that letter was 100% written by Chris Davis. I’d literally bet my entire portfolio on that fact alone. That’s why you hire gunners like him. The letter has that has deliciously direct and aggressive lawyerly tone—the kind you use when you want to send a very clear message to some asshole without spelling it all out. I fucking love this letter. It was one of the main reasons I put the rest of my chips into the GME basket. I doubt I’m alone there. And what did we learn from this letter? Well: a lot. But I’m going to focus on a few quick things. First, we learned that over the Summer, Cohen had “private conversations” with the Board and Sherman about the need to pivot toward becoming a technology-driven business with a new strategic vision. And he calls out Sherman and the Board directly for lacking this vision, using Mainstreet-Friendly pejoratives like “c-suite” and “boardroom.” He takes a direct shot at Hired Gun Sherman’s Boomer-Ass Business Record (Advanced Auto Parts! Cool!) and his obvious bent towards what he knows: Boring Ass Low Margin B&M Bullshit Companies and straight-up calls him a dumb-ass old man (“twentieth-century focus!”) who Just Doesn’t Fucking Get It. He alleges that he and the Board have presided over “massive value destruction” (almost makes it sound intentional, or at least grossly negligent) and have never taken “full accountability” for all their fuck-ups and intransigence. Some folks have suggested that, sure, Cohen wants change and yeah he seemed like he had a bit of a bee in his bonnet, but if he doesn’t get some good movement in those areas, he’ll just sell his 6.5M shares to tank the stock and take his ball and go home to play with his dog, who loves him No Matter What. In this interpretation, the letter is just Cohen Asking To Speak To The Manager and then if the response is not to his liking, well then, He Will Just Take His Business Elsewhere, thankyouverymuch. I do not think that is what is going on here. Not with Ryan Cohen and Chris Davis. This letter is Ryan Cohen Crossing The Fucking Rubicon. He did the honorable thing and took his vision to the Board and Sherman. How genuine he was in that effort, I have no idea, as my thesis is that he has had a takeover plan in place since he hired Chris Davis. But whatever the initial motivations, it was the honorable thing to do to discuss his vision with Sherman and the Board before he and Chris Davis eventually rip their fucking hearts out (which, spoiler: I believe he is getting ready to do as we speak). Reasonable minds can disagree here, but I do not think you write a letter like that unless you have a plan to handle all possible responses to it. He just torched his collegial relationship, such as there ever was or could have been, with that CEO and that Board. He flaunts Chewy’s world-class infrastructure and market cap versus their lame ass sub-$1B Dying Mall Store Bullshit. And he makes a very public rejection of a seat on the board (and the reason given: because you fuckheads would just ignore me and drive me nuts while you continue doing Dumb Boomer Shit with my money all goddamn day), which made it 100% clear to me that this is Cohen Serving Goddamn Notice that unless they get serious about the scope of their turnaround and start listening to him and convey this new direction to shareholders asap, that he’s coming for them. He even alludes to his own turnaround plan but then tells them to do their jobs like the Big Capable Adults they are. And then Cohen attaches this letter to an amended 13D to ensure that all shareholders see it and also see that he still holds all of his shares. Within hours, the WSJ had an article on this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gamestops-new-billionaire-investor-calls-for-tech-centric-makeover-11605565458?mod=hp_lista_pos5. And guess what’s neat? If you are an interested shareholder or a habitual reader of the Wall Street Journal (I, sir, am not) and you saw that article, you might have wondered what this Cohen guy is all about? You know, Mortimer, the dog guy—made billions. And thanks to the recent out-of-the-blue marketing campaign that was definitely NOT engineered by Chris Davis as part of a takeover plan, your subsequent Google searches, and the recent articles they produced, likely made you think: this guy is a fucking whiz kid and I like the cut of his jib. Cohen Quietly Meets With Funds/Investors In the weeks leading up to earnings, sharp observers also notice something: Ryan Cohen is meeting with various large shareholders for some reason. There were several reports of this on stocktwits (links are lost to eternity in that cluttered hellhole unless some astute commentator can find and link in the comments), so some salt is a necessary accompaniment here (I like to cite my evidence), but we have at least one confirmed meeting with the head of DOMO Capital: Mr. Justin Dopierala. Now, Justin happens to be a pro-GME writer (and a sharp one at that) at Seeking Alpha. You know, that paywall website where people purporting to know what they’re talking about get paid peanuts to write purposefully inane articles for maximum clicks from other idiots? That one. Well Justin is one of the good ones there, and DOMO Capital is also a large shareholder of GME. (Conflict of interest, you say? Shut yo’ mouth!). On November 30, at 9:19 AM (the payin’ for inanity crew can go see this – the comment is still there), Dopierala made the following comment on another SA article: *** “I've recently had the pleasure of having a 1 on 1 video meeting with Ryan Cohen that lasted over an hour. Going forward, I no longer feel comfortable commenting on the topic (of Ryan Cohen), so please understand when I do not respond to any of your questions on this specific topic. Ryan is a very intelligent man, and I remain as bullish as ever on GameStop's future." *** So what can we extrapolate from this? Ryan Cohen likely reached out to DOMO Capital/Dopierala to discuss his strategic vision. I do not know if he announced his plans directly, or what the purpose of the call was (see the very below on how I think this all could relate to a consent solicitation to recall the board) but I’m sure, at the very least, the text, if not the subtext, was heavy as fuck on that Zoom call. And why do I think Cohen contacted him and not the other way around? Because Dopierala, a writer for SA that I’m sure would love to publish even an anodyne Q&A with Ryan Cohen to Get Him All the Clicks, didn’t get an on-the-record interview. Not even some softball about whether his dog prefers his Apple investment decision or his Wells Fargo one. No: he got the concession (assuming he did) to simply acknowledge that a discussion took place (buried in a comment on some other dude’s SA article), but he explicitly says he’s not going to talk about anything related to Cohen going forward. No sir, no how. But if Cohen is just a regular old fellow shareholder (Cue Ryan: “And Justin, please: the pleasure is all mine”), then why the fuck are you making a cagy comment and acting like you Have A Big Fucking Secret and Oh God I Wish I Could Tell You Something But I Just Cant! with that comment, Justin? The Man Doth Protesting and Shit, I say. Here’s the article link for you Seeking Alpha Super Sleuths: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4380313-gamestop-likely-already-digital-revenue-sharing-sony-up-to-10 And even yesterday, Dopierala can’t help himself. In a discussion about Cohen’s tweet yesterday (you saw the tweet right? What kind of GME-to-da-moon! investor are you anyway? https://twitter.com/ryancohen/status/1336775515101949963), Dopierala gets all Jim Carey As The Riddler on us in a response to “EricinPDX,” (some dude living in the Portland Airport) who writes: EricInPDX I take his tweet as a total negative .. the Jim Cramer thing. I have no position at the moment. Our man Dopierala then responds “then you are wrong yet right.” https://seekingalpha.com/article/4393394-gamestop-cohen-right-to-downplay-ps5-xbox-series-mistakes-core-digital-problem So I think he’s having a little fun talking like a slightly less backwardsy Yoda saying: yeah, that Cohen tweet was obviously negative because he’s highlighting how fucked GME seems after that Q3 call (and also, check out how Chewy’s doin’ in that clip!). But it’s also not negative because it means Cohen is about to rip Sherman’s still-beating heart out and Shock And Awe our asses with a vote. And I, Justin Dopierala, head of DOMO Capital, can be a little wink winky about this because, oh I don’t know, on our hour long call Cohen maybe used puppetry to act out “Bryan Flohen’s” plan to call a vote and supplant the Bad Man “Gerald Shorman” while asking “Would You Theoretically Be With Bryan Flohen?” with a few well-timed arch of the eyebrows. Or he got his explicit consent to his plan (see below re consent solicitations). We just do not know. In conclusion: We know that Cohen met with shareholders in the period between the day he sent that letter and the date of the Q3 call. We just do not know what was said. But we do know that Dopierella, either out of a sense of journalistic ethics (Stop laughing you guys! Seriously!) or out of concern about possible SEC lookie-loos, decides to be up-front about his inability to even utter the name Ryan Cohen from now on. General George “Custard” Sherman’s Lame-Ass Empire Striking Back Let’s recall the letter now. I’m guessing a rich, egotistical pampered-ass hired gun Boomer CEO named George goddamn Sherman didn’t like someone who reminds him of his asshole kids talking to him like that. We all know what happened next: the Q3 “Say Omnichannel One More Time Motherfucker!” call. As I mentioned in my prior post on this (link above if you care), Sherman pulled the boomer-ist of boomer moves in an act of self-sabotage that is likely to be studied in business courses once this whole story plays out. You see, that letter that Cohen/Davis sent was a trap. And Sherman and the Board and their Big Fucking Corporate Brains clearly lack an inner Admiral Ackbar. Cohen sent that letter three weeks before the earnings call. And demanded that they conduct *another* strategic review and present a plan to shareholders outlining how they are going to fully pivot into a new technology focused company. Cohen knows they have no intention of doing this. He’s apparently been hectoring them all summer about it. And I’m guessing he talked to Sherman enough to know that the dude is just not on the level (as all of us who listened to that fumbling bland-ass corporate caveat-speak on that call got to experience as well). So he knows, like we all did, that Q3 earnings are likely to be middling at best. But unlike me, who clearly thought that the one way out of this for Sherman and the Board was to give some exciting guidance on Q4, maybe even a share buyback (as they are authorized to do) and some more info on the Microsoft deal, likely revenue, other possible similar deals with Nintendo and Sony. I don’t know, but Something. No, Cohen and Davis are way smarter than me and know Sherman a bit better and probably assumed that Sherman is likely to whiff on a response to his letter. And lo and behold, whiff he does. Nothing. We get no response to the letter and no real plan to transform GME into a tech-driven gaming company (Sherman: “but, but…I said Omnichannel you guys! What do you want from me beyond bland corporate robot speak!?”). But what else happens? Sherman and the Board inexplicably authorize a shelf registration for up to $100M worth of ATM shares. This from a company that just bought back shares, is authorized to buy back more, paid down debt early—and now is about to be flush with Sweet, Sweet New Console Cash. What in the everlasting fuck? And in case you were inclined to give Sherman and the Board the benefit of the doubt here, the reason was simple and straightforward and included within the S3 filing itself. And that is: “Hey Cohen: Fuck Off. And if we have to dilute our shareholders to get you to fuck off, by God that’s the kind of shortsighted ME-first move that got George Sherman where he is today! So go find another company to hassle you ungrateful Millennial Start Up Dog Store Bro and let the adults handle this.” Here is the provision in the S-3 (under the heading: Anti-Takeover Provisions): Authorized But Unissued Shares The authorized but unissued shares of common stock and preferred stock are available for future issuance without stockholder approval. These additional shares may be utilized for a variety of corporate purposes, including future public offerings to raise additional capital, corporate acquisitions and employee benefit plans. The existence of authorized but unissued shares of common stock and preferred stock could render more difficult or discourage an attempt to obtain control of us by means of a proxy contest, tender offer, merger or otherwise. So instead of crushing the call and giving some dope guidance about Q4 and trigger the MOASS so we all revere the name George Sherman for All Eternity, Sherman and the Board make a lame-ass move to try to protect their jobs and--lo and behold!--THIS is the main takeaway of the report and call. And what drives the precipitous dive in SP AH and yesterday. A dive so steep that it removes well over $100M in market cap in value, the kinda-lame amount that you’re trying to stick Cohen with (and dilute all of us) so you can keep your Big Fancy-Man Job and the bonus you’re counting on so you and the misses can jet off to Sandals Jamaica like you always do. George: Whoops? Knew we should have gone with a higher number! A lame ass “poor man’s poison pill” as u/snowk88 on stocktwits put it (shout out because he also helped me flush out this thesis a bit and clued me in on Chris Davis’s work for MC). So back to how I started this missive, back when we were all younger and maybe a bit more naïve, right? Anyway. Yesterday Ryan Cohen lost over $20M on paper because George Sherman thought the best way to handle that Punk-Ass Millennial was to use shareholders as a hostage in any possible fight over control of this company he’s been building his entire—oh, eh, the last 18 months because he’s just a hired gun that goes where the money is and waits for his ka-ching moment before splitting because who gives a fuck he’s George Sherman and You’re Not. But guess what happens when you do that? (Hand down, George: you’ve had your turn). You ENRAGE the shareholders who you want to have your back and vote for you in any possible proxy fight or takeover offer! What strategery! You must have been involved in planning the Iraq war, George. But guess who was likely laughing their ass off yesterday at their colossal good fortune at this misstep? Ryan Cohen and Chris Davis. Because now Sherman has opened the door even wider than it was before and made it that much easier for Cohen to get the votes and kick down his fucking door. And yesterday, to no one’s surprise, the SP falls almost 20% and even Jim Fucking Cramer piles on and tells all his braindead Boomer TV watchers that this is The Next Blockbuster like all the other Super Sophisticated Analysts out there. And now we see the #WeWantCohen and #InstallCohen hashtags (which you all should consider using frequently if you dig all this and think Sherman needs to go). What are you thinking if you’re Ryan Cohen? Take your ball and go home time? Or: maybe that it’s time to Show George Sherman that You Do Not Fuck With a Super Nice Guy With Really Good Ideas That Are Usually Respectfully Presented (Unless You Piss Me Off) Like Ryan Goddamn Cohen? I’m thinking it’s the latter. Taking all of this, I think Cohen and Chris Davis have been planning some kind of takeover, possibly even via consent solicitation like Davis did in his MC matter, since the summer and that George Sherman’s ironic attempt to save his own skin is about to backfire stupendously to help Cohen lock in the votes he needs. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy—excuse me—I mean: Smug Asshole. Epilogue: The Consent Solicitation Ed: the consent solicitation is not likely in play here. But Cohen is definitely still coming for Sherman and Co - we just don't know exactly how yet. Now, just what in the hell is a consent solicitation and why does it matter? I confess that I didn’t know shit about this until I started READING ALL THE WORDS, but our friends at theactivistinvestor.com have some useful information to help those of us with tiny little baby brains understand what it is and why it may be relevant here (relevant excerpts below, but it you really want to geek out on this shit, I would recommend clicking the link, reading the words and THINKING BIG THOUGHTS). And also, hoping that some folks can respond in comments to help flush this out further because it’s late and I’ve already written too many words. But, before I drop some k-n-o knowledge from our friends at theactivistinvestor.com, just to remind you: GameStop is a Delaware Corporation. Now imagine being magically whisked away to…Delaware! (Hi. I’m in Delaware). ******* From: http://www.theactivistinvestor.com/The_Activist_InvestoConsent_Solicitations.html [Ed: removed quoted text] ***** CPT Hubbard here again. I’ll release you momentarily. But study those steps a bit and ponder where Cohen might be in that process. And also recall that we know that Cohen had an “off the record” meeting with our man Dopierala from DOMO Capital and we have no idea what they talked about. Could Cohen have been getting shareholders consent? No idea. But it certainly seems possible. If that is the case, the 60 day clock is ticking. Which means that, assuming Dopierala was stop #1 (probably doubtful, but it’s the one data point we have), we should know something by at least late January if Cohen is actually initiating a consent solicitation on this incompetent Board and probably a lot closer to mid-January (Sorry Jan call holders) since I assume Cohen started reaching out around the time he sent that letter on Nov 16th. To which I say to Cohen: Little old me and my 20,000 shares consent! We consent most emphatically, sir. And no one will ever accuse you, Mr. Cohen, of not seeking consent. You may retain this for your records. To conclude, Cohen is Young, Scrappy and Hungry and He’s Not Throwing Away His Shot. And Fuck George Sherman. “I’M FINISHED” **To be clear: this missive is for information purposes only and I would advise against following my example in any way, shape or form, as this pandemic has quite plainly knocked a screw loose if I'm here writing novelas to a bunch of Paste-Eating Rocket Kids.
A compilation of post-inauguration reactions from QAnon group chats
These are excerpts from a few private QAnon group chats that I observe. I originally posted these on the megathread. They're listed roughly in the order the comments were made, immediately following the inauguration ceremony and through the next day. I made significant effort to vet that these comments are not from trolls or bots. You can really see the narrative-building in action throughout these comments. Pt. 1 (1/20 afternoon)
We’re are all the mass arrests? Oh my gosh I’ve wasted so much time in rabbit holes and nothing to show for it but making me look like a complete idiot. I am livid and sad today.
Aren't we supposed to have faith? I have a hard time believing that Sidney Powell and Gulliani have played their reputations on the line and General Flynn knows what comes next if they don't move. But remember, the military is in charge
Can’t believe all that never really listened or believed... pathetic behavior of so called patriots... giving up now means you never believed to begin with.. you hoped.
What if president Trump was part of it.... they tricked us
So I have listen to what was said and how this was a plan to take back our country and Trump would be our President and not Biden. So nothing has happened and Biden is President now. There was talk about the Military would take care of this and nothing is happening. I think that Q was BULLSHIT and hasn't been heard from for months. So we are ALL fucked and we will be labeled as traitors . Good luck with the Q BS
This is where we find the real patriots from the band wagon patriots. Faith. Have faith. hold the line
its not over until its over, waiting on the EBS, who is with me?
I refuse to believe that Trump would walk away and leave us with all these injustices. He knows of all their crimes. I’m sure there has to be some kind of military plan we don’t know about. I’m not gonna say hold the line but I am going to say pray.
Don't you all think this has been a way the ds kept Trump supporters and conservatives suppressed and away from standing up and worse to compile a list of all so called dissenters??
I have not lost hope.. I have followed a for more then 2 years.. will not lose faith.. even if arrests dont happen I will always have faith in the American Patriots in our country :flag_us::flag_us::purple_heart::purple_heart:
I never said I knew the layout for the day I only know the fight isn't over. DJT said the best is yet to come yesterday. I have faith. I am a true patriot. I will never run. I fear no evil.
I have one more ounce of hope. Mike pompeo came on to do his final address on national tv at exactly 1:21 yesterday.
I'm disappointed that codemonkeyz seems to have thrown in the towel and is working on "something" that he's going to try to sell, but i must be crazy....i still have faith! i've lost friendships, my own husband thinks i'm bonkers, so i'm dug in now. God wins, no matter what, so i'll continue to be kooky until it's the end
I have faith but now my husband has lost it threatening to live or just shoot his self
I'm willing to lay my life down for my children and grand children's freedom. But we've been lied to for so long. I can't be the only one answering texts right now from the ones who doubted us to begin with.
they are getting away arrest them now
People the military is in control now. It might take them a couple of months to get all the perps,but it's coming people, it's coming!!!
They are all in cars. Going to detention center?
Well this offically is my last day in the group i have followed this for over 3 years to be slapped in the face with the reality that i am crazy and this was all bullshit.
Look.. is Q a joke on us Patriots ? I think we are all Q.. a family of Q.. whether or not Q was created by Dems.. Q brought us Patriots all together.. helped us to find faith.. showed us we weren't alone.. gave us extended family.. if Dems created Q it backfired on them.. I for one am proud of my "family" :blush::flag_us::purple_heart:
I am not trying to be negative I still have the faith but as far as holding the line I don't know supposedly have Chinese military men sitting on the border of Canada and the United States and Mexico and the United States just waiting for buying to take office to infiltrate our country makes no sense to me I just never dreamed in a million years that all these people that we followed and believed would desert us the way they have no no nothing no communication what are we supposed to do let China come in and take a take over our country commonly in Harris's already said that we need to take our they need to take our children from us and re-educate them in camps why has FEMA set up camps
Really??? Being a Patriot and believing in Trump. But being lied to by Q, watching your election stolen, all 3 branches lost. They will undo everything we fought for and we can't stop them. So if I am PO'd with others we are allowed to vent and yell if we must.
This movie sucked. I want my money back. Im afraid to watch the credits
Just like a death, it will take time to recover. I knew our politics was LOST. I put so much hope in this Q stuff. Now it has let me down. Sorry if I feel hopeless unless we go to war
When things fall in place and happens like we were told.. how many that are calling it quits, bashing the information you were given... will be claiming that you knew it would happen all along? Can kind of understand how Jesus must of felt on the cross and just a very few were left there still believing....
Where's Q, E, Flynn, Juan O seven, Charlie Ward, Simon Parkes, Sydney Powell, Lynn Woods, Pompeo, Trump, Mike Lidell, Rudy? Anybody making statements on 4 years of playing dungeons and dragons???
Let's wait in 3 days and see what happens. Jesus rose again in three days.
This is how i feel. . . If Things were not to go as planned (trust the plan) Trump or Pompeo or Gen Flynn, or SOMEONE like them, would say to the MILLIONS of us "ok guys, stop the nonsense, it's over" BUT, they have not. They have continued to say, "it is not over" so I still have faith in the plan.
I was bothered by the fact that the video of DJ and Melania getting off the plane was shot blurry and from so far away. Also they were wearing masks which I thought was strange.
You guys have become like an AA group or something for me. My family won't speak to me, my friends now think I'm nuts. The media is calling us terrorists....Jesus, let's see some resolution before it gets irreparable.
My internet keeps glitching, and every time I get excited thinking its transitioning to the EBS
Pt.2 1/20 evening
I just dumped genhyten channel.... EBS. ... then... "remember something might go wrong".... then 45 min.... Ummmm.... ain't buying it.... something might go wrong.. yeah.. .I bet it does and no EBS coming.
What about the fact they swore in the fake joe Biden. I thought the other one with the bum chin would show up to get sworn in. I always figured this dumber joe was just to take a bullet.
Military took control once Biden went through the act of swearing in. Once the constitution was violated by participating and accepting a fraudulent election, the military took over the reigns without needing to do it with a coup.
I have nothing to watch on TV anymore. I can't watch the news. They lie. I cant watch sitcoms and movies because I know the lies and satanism of Hollywood. I can't watch Baseball because they support BLM and the false narrative. NO NFL period. Alot is changing for me.
Trump has said so many encouraging things just in the last couple of days, short of telling us exactly when he will be back.
Nothing Biden does to revoke any orders, to put any new laws in place... none of it will be legal. That’s why the military had their backs facing as he drove by. That’s why he didn’t have the presidential plane pick him up. They know it’s not legit.
Exactly! That inauguration was just sad...fake happy KH is the only one who looked like she was ready to party..
I have heard something about Trump being officially our president again March 4, because it takes 30-45 days I’ve heard this in a few places over the last month or two.
He had to step aside so the Military can take over. Otherwise, he would he accused of using the military to stage a coup
I found out with the oath, he actually didn't say it all. He skipped most of the oath and was sworn in at least 10 minutes before the inauguration was supposed to happen, meaning Trump was still president!!
wouldnt it be funny if we keep waiting for the next milestone and voila, its 2024 that would suck
I have to admit, I don’t understand what people mean when they say we are watching a movie.
I did not let my kids go to school today(even though its only virtual only since they are closed for covid) bc I just knew they were going to teach them about it today after yesterday in my daughters 2nd grade class they made her watch their acceptance speech. So they learned from me today. Its so horrible we are having to protect our kids from school!!
I can wait till jan 27th at 306 pm (second marker) can you. I have hope in all this .
So does the corporation dissolve at midnight?
Going down tomorrow to unregister to vote. Doesn't "F"ing matter anymore they've made that perfectly clear. Q was a psyop the whole time...
Hey all you left over Q nut jobs...where were all of these mass arrests at today? Where were the Marshals Service out making all these arrests of the Clinton’s and Obama and others? Where is the martial law that was supposed to have kicked in with the 20,000 National Guard troops at the inauguration? You delusional fucks have been preaching that shit for the last 6 months. So what happened??? Could it be that “Q” was actually wrong? Or could it be that you are all just bat shit crazy?
Okay, well, I'm guessing that you haven't figured out that the real "Q" isn't online. In fact, the real "Q" is Military Intelligence and is never online. I'm guessing you also haven't figured out that Social Media sites like this one are full of leftist shills posing as Trump supporters. Their task: to make us look as stupid and crazy as they can in order to discredit us so that we can be more easily demonized. It's a tactic straight out of the leftist handbook. Anyway, now you know.
I have a feeling this is not over yet. Something in my gut.... I'm holding onto the hopes that the military is going to let the new administration run amok until the March 4th real inauguration day.. How much more dirt will pile up on these guys when they think they got the keys to the kingdom..
Looks like everything is right on schedule. Insurrection act is in effect. Flynn is in charge. USA Inc dissolved. Hold on a little longer. March 4th will be our day. I hate promised dates as much as you do but this will all be over soon.
The wrinkled flags with the gold hair around them for the speech, was a farewell speech to the american corporation, we will be back was our signal to hang in there its almost over. Because when he comes up we will have our America without the corporation and he will be sworn in as the 19th president of America the country before it fell to the global corporation. The election fraud is significant and will be overturned. The PRE RECORDED INAUGURATION was aired at 7am in spain which is 1am in Washington D.C is district of colombia(NOT USA SOIL) in which the gates with the locks on the outside of the fence are a signal of no ones leaving. President Trump is still the president, hes just letting his best friends named the military handle this one. Best is yet to come, is we are getting our republic that we fought for in 1776 BACK. Not the globalist Corporation we needed because of debt. JUST HANG IN THERE AND BLOCK THE FUCKIN TROLLS. There was no flag flying because there is NO ACTING PRESIDENT, FEMA leaders are president and vice president while the swamp is drained.
I had to calm down.....x22 and the Marshall report made it clearer to me. Never doubted my President, but I didn’t understand the complexities.....I’m in awe of Donald Trump🇺🇸
Have faith in the Plan...look it up...the District of Columbia is a Sovereign State owned by the Vatican which is in the process of having it"s assets stripped. There will be a new capital of the US of A and Trump will be the Overlord or King...to be decided. Biden is just the President of the Corporation...hold the line and stick to the Plan...no violence :flag_gb::flag_gb:
Type in antifa. Com like on Google and it redirects you to the White House
Barbara only communist sympathizers are on fascistbook 🤡
Were at war people All you scum mfs who let that shit in our country fk u forever fk u i stand for the people whos sacrificed whos died from fighting the very thing u mfs let in fk u foever people like bon jovi garth brooks fk u come around me you fking socialist scum fk u u just steped on the very people whos sacrificed for our freedoms fk u We are not backing down its inly gonna get fking worse people died for me ill die for them
Pt. 3, 1/21
I just watched Simons video today. Its reassuring that they WERE planning on arresting all of them on inaguration, but very upsetting that they are threating the lives of hundreds, to maybe up to thousands of people just to not get arrested. I cant wait for the military to fix the problem, find a bomb maybe, get around their threat and kill these satanist, terrorist, pedophilic, group of people. The day i see them all get executed will be the best day of my life. They threaten america, they are going to die.
The democrats threatened the military so they wouldnt arrest them. Peoples lives are at stake. Thats why they arrent moving in to arrest them yet.
May have gotten a little drunk last night and stayed up until 3:30 a.m. seemed to be a popular idea though.... I am usually in bed by 8 or 9 p.m. but the day seemed to call for some " think in drink in " anyone else? The guy at the liquor store said that everyone seemed to be doing the same thing yesterday..... Q has done more to put Biden in office than all the other leftist groups combined.
Not believing in Q or WWG1WGA is like the Catholic Church not wanting peasants to know how to read.
Anyone else notice the hunger games dresses all the women were wearing yesterday? Symbolism will be their downfall. I need to watch that movie again.
i just want the EBS to kick in, that is all i dont care when, but just kick in
I think right now we all have to keep this between us for a while longer. It will unfold soon enough. Think of it as a delicious secret.
Folks all I know is, this is the BESTEST GROUP I have ever been in bar none. I've been in groups from AOL,YAHOO, and others and the diversity of people and the comments makes for a tight knit group, which I love to come into and express my opinions and listen to yours. I love you all!!!:heart::heart::heart:
I bet those 50,000 people are feeling the impact of this military fake goverment. It’s such a HUGE ELABORATE plan that the job loss and the military family threats is all part of the storm. How long! How long will this go on! I’m asking genuine questions. Does Biden have that power LR. the military. It’s one or the other. Can’t be both!
Red 4,5,6 didn’t happen! Total BS. When someone tells you to Hold the Line, they’re saying STFU, stay home, and do what you’re told, or else! Sorry, I never bought the Q BS. 26 years military told me you never tell the enemy anything publicly, and disinformation, although smart, what Q and Dave told us was to give us false hope and demoralize us. Folks, if you watch Newsmax, OAN, and read Epoch Times you will be much more informed. You know why the conservative news isn’t talking about Q and X22? Because they would lose their fan base. Die hard conservatives who are hooked on Q and X22 don’t wanna hear negativity, but are now pissed they got played! Thank your CIA for that. Now use that anger and let ’s do stuff to take our country back!
I really don’t like not hearing from President Trump. The best part about COVID was seeing him talk every night. You know, in the beginning.
Can anyone tell me why the military is now breaking down equipment, fencing, and troops being transported out of DC? I ask because I thought they were supposed to be in charge now. My son's company is returning to Ft Andrews
What happen to Sydney Powell. She fell off the face of earth.
I'm guessing Sydney Powell is sitting quietly in the wings, seeing as she is a military lawyer
Gonna sign off today. I still have faith in The Plan. I did NOT see a defeated man step on or off of that plane. Hope that you all find some peace. Im going to eat some POPCORN!!!
I think inauguration was possible cgi. For some reason Jill B shoes were tan then a bit later they were teal and then a bit later they were tan again. Strange
I spent a good bit of time this morning adding a dislike to every Biden video I could find on yt
Everybody should (gently) troll FB group “the other 98%” Debunk all their propaganda post with facts that expose the fake news. Maybe we can wake up a few of the sleepers!
So yall say to fill tubs. We have grinder pumps. Without power the fill up what do we do then??
While everyone is listening to that Hunter video thumbs down all the white house vids there aren't many! Keep disliking them its easy we can do that from home we are in and out of these vids all day
So who saw the satanic ritual video floating about with Trump at the end saying he was part of the club but he got out. I thought nobody got out alive?
Soooo ok the military is drawing down in DC. So yes its over. So what lies you all selling today
I learned that following any of these X22, Simon Parks, Charlie wood etc .. they have good content that can make sense but why on earth would anything they are predicting come true? They are openly talking on platforms that anyone n everyone can access. Trump, MIlitary, Top notch strategy intel won’t be shared publicly in any way shape or form! They are good at decoding Q that’s it. The rest of their time lines are BS
What matters is that Biden is on House Arrest in the White House and is under investigation. Him, Pelosi, and all involved will fall. The swamp will be drained, hopefully..peacefully, otherwise the military will restore order. I however am full of rage I would love to unleash, but watching them get a taste of their own bullshit will be just as satisfying.
[DD] 12k on NextEra Energy (NEE) LEAPs as a clean energy play
I wasn't really planning on making a post on this, but I'd like to make the case for investing in a utilities company focused on clean energy as a smart play for the upcoming stimulus/shift towards renewables. So what's NextEra Energy? Summarized from Wikipedia:
It is the largest electric utility in the USA by market capitalization. (At 160B currently)
Revenues of over $19.20 billion in 2019. Operating income of $5.35 billion in 2019.
About 14,000 employees throughout the US and Canada.
The important subsidiaries include
The Utilities;
Florida Power & Light (FPL) - A Florida electric utility. Notable for having wider profit margins than usual.
Gulf Power Company - Electric utility in the Alabama area
NextEra Energy Capital Holdings (NEECH)
NextEra Energy Resources (NEER) - The largest operators of wind and solar projects in the world. Importantly, expansive holdings in the Midwest. Also has numerous energy storage projects under their belt.
They also have a 35% stake in NextEra Energy Partners (NEP) with Jim Robo being the CEO of both companies.
They're the market leader in renewables deployment
They've proven they know how to compete and edge out profits in cutthroat industries
High P/E, but in a stable industry
They have plenty of leverage available for massive capital expenditures
Now onto why I think they will collect more than their fair share of Biden's upcoming stimulus. Let's start off by looking at what Biden has been pushing in his announcements;
According to S&P Global Trucost, NextEra Energy ranked ahead of its peers on a number of impressive reported performance metrics, among others, including signed contracts to build approximately 12,000 megawatts of additional wind, solar and battery storage projects as of the close of 2019, and NextEra Energy's announced target of emissions reductions per unit of generation by 67% by 2025 from a 2005 baseline, equivalent, to a 40% reduction in absolute emissions – and this, despite an expected doubling of generation over the period. Already, NextEra Energy reports more than 50% of its generation is from zero- and near-zero-emitting sources.
I think it's fair to say that point 1 will hurt them much less than it will their less progressive competition. Additionally, as a result of their investments so far, they're not untested when it comes to deployment: They know what to expect and we know they can execute on larger CapEx programs with less risk than the competition. If Biden is to throw the expected 40 billion a year into the industry, it's quite likely NextEra will be ready to scale up operations sustainably and successfully to capitalize on the opportunity, clearing point two. But point three is the really interesting one. Let me start off with a question; If you were a democratic president that wanted to create middle-class jobs in renewables, how would you go about it? Would you invest in the companies making the end product? Maybe a little for the companies that pull the required resources out of the ground too? Let's take a look at what the clean energy portion stimulus bill a few weeks ago contained and see how NextEra is positioned for each portion. Big thanks to millerlit for summarizing. Also, I'll be referencing the NextEra 2019 annual report from this point on. Please bring up a copy if you'd like to verify the numbers I claim.
$1.5 Billion for Solar - Will probably go to most industry players pretty equally, NextEra will get a cut as a result of their investing through NEER. 12% of NEER's generation is from solar power according to the 2019 annual report (p.13).
$2.6 Billion for Transport - NextEra probably won't get much of this, but they have made an acquisition in the field within the last month. It would be a nice perk if they announced major projects here, but let's just leave this as a hypothetical.
$2.36 billion for smart utility and energy distribution technologies. - They're going to get a serious cut of this for obvious reasons.
$625 million for new research, development and commercialization for both onshore and offshore wind technologies - 65% of NEER's renewables generation is wind power according to the 2019 annual report. They're going to get a nice cut here too.
$850 million for geothermal technology development - Nothing here will go to NextEra, as far as I'm aware.
$1093 million for marine energy and hydropower tech - Nothing here will go to NextEra, as far as I'm aware.
$500 million pot for industry and transportation looking to decarbonize - 0 stake in this race
$6.2 billion for carbon capture utilization and storage technologies - FPL is investing quite heavily here, as 74% of their generation back in 2019 was from Natural Gas (p.9). They're going to get a good portion of this.
$6.6 billion in funding for the modernization of existing nuclear power plants and the development of advanced reactors - FPL generated 22% of their power from Nuclear in 2019 (p.9). They're probably going to get a fair slice of this.
$4.7 billion for fusion industry - NextEra isn't spending money on fusion development, as far as I'm aware.
But you get the point by now - NextEra has a slice in a lot of these pies directly. On top of that, the renewables segment as a whole is going to hugely benefit from the stimulus driving down the capital expenditures required for panels and turbines. Frankly, there are very few people better positioned than a well-run utility company with massive credit available taking on the debt at great rates. When I put it like that, it's no surprise that these folks managed to thrive under Trump's policies - and that they're extremely well positioned to grow aggressively under Biden. But there's even a fun political trap for the republicans here. Do you know where the best place to place on-shore wind turbines is? The midwest (Source) - A notable republican stronghold area. NEER's own wind turbine deployment map in the annual report (p.13) backs up that their expansion is largely in that area. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Democrats quietly slated a lot of the renewables spending into the midwest in an attempt to entrench a pro-union and pro-clean energy vote there - forcing the republican platform into a weird spot in future elections. It helps that that's pretty much the economical way to play it too. To sum it up, I think NextEra's going to be a serious beneficiary of the renewables bill however it ends up going down, even if only because of their financial resources, deployment experience, and contracts with suppliers. A big portion of this is that I don't believe the market has priced in the amount they're collecting directly and indirectly because the response so far seems to have been "FAN/TAN/ICLN/QCLN goes brrrrr". Let's talk about the competition; The other US utility companies that were listed as leaders in the clean energy transition by Global Platts are Dominion Energy, Sempra Energy, and Xcel Energy. From one look at them it seems like they're (1) much smaller and (2) at best half off on P/E so I didn't really look at them too hard if I'm being honest. Now for the bigger question; Do I grab NEE or [clean energy ETF of choice]? Really, it's up to you. I think that the clean energy ETFs are trading at downright idiotic valuations now. That, and I'd much rather bet on one or two known strong performers that I believe in than I would on a bunch of companies picked by someone else. That being said, those ETFs have much more hype behind them, which is an important consideration in this market. Short-term catalysts are basically the stimulus bill and earnings on the 26th. I expect some big announcements on how they plan to capitalize on the bill during the earnings call, and a huge bump in interest if they announce that they're accelerating their renewables pipeline and focusing on that portion of the company more. Anyways, onto positions and how I'd trade it;
If you just want to buy and hold in an account for the extreme long-term -> buy shares and hold, I think this is going to heavily outperform the S&P 500 into the future.
If you want to get some of the spicy synthetic leverage gains with me -> Jan 20 2023 80c's. They print if the stock goes up ~15% in the next 2 years because IV is super low. I grabbed 10 at 12.10 at the start of the week on the dip, but I think they'll open 13.00+ tomorrow. Keep in mind that you don't need to hold till expiry, I'll probably liquidate these after a year because I want the tax benefits.
That's all from me today! This is my first DD post ever, so if you've got any suggestions/questions feel free to fire away.
$MP mega-DD -- MP Materials: The Money Printer --EV/Renewable Infrastructure and REEEEEEEEEE's
WARNING: 8TH GRADE READING LEVEL REQUIRED FOR MATERIAL
Intro/Disclaimer
yeah its long as fuck, but read for tendies. If its too long suck a bear dick and move on. This is real analysis of the business model, not just a bunch of emojis. It is so long because of the niche field it is operating in and how a lot of key points are not understood well by the WSB community. This company really is a diamond in the rough and a great way to play future trends with less risk as you're not picking winners. Its the "picks and shovels" play of electrification and renewable energies. I'll explain the realistic case for how this company is soon going to be running the best tendie mine for decades to come. This is my second DD post on now $MP, formerly $FVAC, and i'm back to discuss the developments of the company since my pre-merger post and add some further analysis about the valuation of the company and its future. There has been too much really shitty DD from both bulls and bears on this companywhere very few people on here have a real understanding of this company, their business model, and the future. First - read my original DD post in order to have a decent understanding of the backstory cause I'm not about to type out all that shit again or explain what I've already written. Read that first then come back: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/jgvarn/fvac_dd_evchina_tension_play/ That post discusses mainly international tensions and the role REE's but this one i'll speak more on the business case of this company and how even without geopolitical tensions it is a true tendie mine. Second - no I'm not a bag holder Ive been in since it was a pre-merged SPAC my average on my shares is about $14 and my LEAP is far far ITM and no I'm not selling any of them. Also, as i referenced in the post I work in a very similar field and interned in college at a mineral mine in the refining aspect as a chemical engineer, so while I'm not an expert at this I have more insight than the average retard and I am trying to give out tendies before the boomers take them from us. I will try my best to explain the business model of a mining company and why this company is the most unique and interesting way to get tech company level growth with the associated free cash flow while not having to be anywhere near as innovative. Ill discuss a lot of the bear arguments for this company as well and try to de-bunk them as most don't really hold water once you look into them the slightest bit.
Background of NdPr
While the company produces as basket of Rare Earth, the plant is aiming to focus on NdPr and other permanent magnet materials in order to play the trend of EV's and electrification. These magnets are extremely important for so many technologies due to how Electric motors work. To put it simply, at current technology the only way to convert electricity to motion or the only way to convert motion to electricity relies on permanent magnets. Im not gonna try to explain more than that because I too am retarded but if you don't believe me or want to learn how watch this video: yeah i know you didn't watch that video, but just imagine you did and now believe me. However, because it works both ways BOTH electric motors AND electric generators rely on this technology. This is key for understanding how NdPr is the best way to play both the trends of electrification AND renewables. First, electrification is most embodied by the rise in EV's in the future, and while that is predicted to be the fastest growing segment of NdPr demand it is foolish to not to account for other evolving technologies reliant on electric motors as well. Robotics will be a huge growth market and electrification of other industries will rely on NdPr permanent magnets. The other massive growth opportunity for permanent magnets is through renewable energies. Wind energy (and possible future motion based energy harvesting tech like tidal energy) work through harvesting mechanical motion and turning a generator to create electricity. Wind power doesn't work without electric generators which don't work without magnets. In addition, wind tech is advancing down a path to require even more magnets due to improvements is Permanent Magnet Direct-Drive (PMDD) technology from the current Gearbox doubly-fed induction Generator (DFIG). Essentially what that means is the new technology will take out the gearbox currently used in wind mills and replacing them with more efficient direct driving technology allowing more mechanical motion into electricity. These new generators require stronger magnets, thus more magnetic material. Read more about that here: TLDR: They mine mainly permanent magnet materials that at current scientific understanding CANNOT be replaced due to their unique electromagnetic properties. TLDR on the TLDR: Special Rocks no replacing. Need special rocks.
$MP's expansion plans
A lot of bears like to bring up the fact that $MP is still reliant on China to do their refining and they're correct... for now. Currently they mine on site and refine to REE concentrates which they then send to china to refine into Rare Earth Oxides (REO's), which then get send to become metal alloys and then finally to magnets. Currently is the only location in the world to refine past concentrate material so $MP is forced to send their material there, but that is why the went public. The intent of them going public was to raise funds in order build an on-site REO facitility, which is scheduled for completion in 2022 and is already started. They already have enough cash on hand to furnish this upgrade as they had over $500M on hand at the end of Q3, and they also are a cash flow positive company already before even moving downstream. There are EV infrastructure plays with much worse valuations and years away from breaking even on cash flow, yes I'm talking to you $QS bagholders... that tech is unproven and there are so many battery competitors in a field where there WILL be a winner Why would they want to move downstream when they're already profitable??? Because the further downstream they go the higher margins they earn and the more tendies they can mine for us. Refining raw materials to useful materials is a value adding process and thus creates more value for the company that does it. Once they complete this expansion they plan on going to stage 3 of their business model, the ability to build magnets and other final products of REE's in America. They have not decided/disclosed their plans for this, whether it is through construction of an onsite facility, an acquisition, or a joint venture, but it is in the plans. This is expected to come online around 2025 and when the insane cash flow can begin for the company. I don't have any reason to doubt the validity of their intention as its just a continuation of the business model they are currently implementing and the majority of the corporate rhetoric is related to "mine-to-magnet" and "restoring the REE supply chain to America." What does this mean for the company? as they move further and further downstream they will increase their margins from this action alone, but it gets even better. This can be shown in their in-house calculations of their 2023 adj. EBITDA target of $252M ​ https://s25.q4cdn.com/570172628/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/MP-3Q20-Earnings-Deck-FINAL-11.23.2020.pdf it is important to note that those numbers are from the current step they are taking right now in building the REO refining facility. Adding further downstream capabilities will only cause that EBITDA value to grow as margins improve, but next I'll discuss where their margins will improve from EVEN MORE. TLDR: downstream expansion is a way to increase margins and therefore free cash flow for the company. TLDR of TLDR: Special rock get more special. Get more tendies for special rock.
Business model of mining companies and why $MP has insane growth potential
\**This is the most important part of this long ass post, if you read one section, then read this*** A big disconnect on a lot of DD in this sub and analysis elsewhere is the economics of how a mining company works. A mine is by definition a COMMODITY PLAY, which I know is not as exciting as a tech company, BUT it will experience tech sector growth for a period of time and then experience a period of time in which develop into a cash cow business reaping huge dividends for shareholders. What i mean by a commodity play is through the economics of how a mine operates. Given a mine at a fixed production volume, the costs on a year in year out basis are relatively similar. What i mean by this is the cost $MP to mine and refine into concentrate will be the same no matter the price of their product. However, the revenue they receive is dependent on the market price of their product, which is what varies the most. An easy way to describe this is through taking a look at their Q3 2020 financial results presentation: ​ https://s25.q4cdn.com/570172628/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/MP-3Q20-Earnings-Deck-FINAL-11.23.2020.pdf That value of Production cost (at the current stage of just creating REE concentrates) will realistically stay the same as that value is from the cost of labor, energy for machinery, administrative costs, etc. While these numbers will vary from quarter to quarter these are costs not predicted to experience rapid growth and this is what is important to realize. It costs roughly the same amount of money to pay someone to blast ore, dig it into dump trucks, pay operators to refine into ore, etc. Don't trust me, look into how steel companies operate, like this sub's favorite $MT. The revenue they receive is dependent on the price of REE's, which is NOT PREDICTED TO BE FLAT. Here is the historic graph of Neodymium from 2011-current: ​ https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/neodymium **If you are an investor in $MP (which you should be) this is an important website to pay attention to because understanding the market dynamics of their product is important to understanding the valuation of this company. ** Allow me to disect that graph a little bit: 1st Peak: From the aftermath of the supply shock from 2010/2011 from the Japanese Navy and Chinese fisherman story i discusses in my previous $FVAC post i linked above. China lowered exports by 40% and the price shot up drastically as industries across the world tried to gobble up as much NdPr as fast as possible in order to ensure their production lines. That was then followed by china flooding the market and selling back that backlog. that caused prices to fall off a cliff and ended up taking molyorp out of business. I'll discuss the Molycorp saga later more in depth and the differences of them and $MP. 2nd Peak: This peak (late 2017) is from the Trade war trump caused with china and is another good explanation of the correlation between REE's and geopolitics i discussed in my last DD post. The middle 2019 peak is again the trade war heating up again. 3rd peak: where we are now. This is from the increased tailwind of EV adoption, more from asia and Europe than the US and because china has been threatening to use REE's as a political tool again, which again i referenced more in my last DD post. However going forward if you want to predict the amount of revenue MP will earn its important to understand the market dynamic and I'd like to discuss why the price is geopolitics aside predicted to steadily increase at a very fast rate. MP, like any other commodity play, relies on the supply-demand dynamic of the sector, and REE demand growth is on track to far outstrip the supply growth. This will result increased prices per ton, but MP's costs stay the same. This is the beauty of the company, as the price goes up their margins go up too! MP and market analysts predicted over a 100% growth in NdPr magnets in the next 10 years: ​ https://s25.q4cdn.com/570172628/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/MP-3Q20-Earnings-Deck-FINAL-11.23.2020.pdf Don't believe that metric? check this more in depth one: ​ https://www.arultd.com/products/supply-and-demand.html This graph shows most important metric as it shows that the world at current rate is not scaling up to meet demand. THIS GRAPH INCLUDES CURRENT PLANNED EXPANSIONS INCLUDING INCREASED RECYCLING. What does this mean?? There is a huge mismatch in projected demand and supply and if you don't know what that will mean then ask your wife's boyfriend about supply-demand graphs from their economics class. The result will be massively increased prices of permanent magnet materials because the world will not be able to mine and refine enough to satisfy demand, so they will be able to increase their prices. BUT AS I SAID EARLIER, MP'S COSTS PER TON WILL REMAIN THE SAME. So what is the gist of this coupled with MP moving toward downstream expansion? MP's margins will increase incredibly from a double whammy of moving downstream AND supply-demand imbalance. Now what does that mean for you?? that means $MP has a very realistic and conservative path toward becoming a company with RIDICULOUS free cash flow. What does that mean for MP? That means that the company will be raking in cash and will be extremely flexible due to their balance sheet. They will be able to expand operations or acquire competitors in order to increase their market share and production volumes OR they will be able to transition into a boomer dividend company that will pay you tendies each year. They could do either of those very easily because the company HAS NO DEBT. In fact, $MP ended Q3 2020 with $507M CASH on hand to finance their future expansions. Okay, i know dividends are boring but the market will begin to price in that future dividend potential and give your calls many tendies along the path to pricing in their dividend power. TLDR: Supply demand imbalance (with geopolitical tensions as a wild card) will result in insane free cash flow in the future for this company. TLDR of the TLDR: People want more special rock more than can make special rock. People give you more tendies for special rocks.
Why Supply won't be able to scale up as fast
A very important assumption in my analysis is the inability for supply to scale up as fast as demand and I'd like to explain this more in depth as it is the crux of this DD. This is where my experience in mineral refining is valuable as I can weigh in on this aspect. Over time there will be more suppliers that come into the business and we are seeing that already, however this is where the timetables of that come into play. Simply put supply can't go up because companies will be slowed greatly due to the time it will take to get up and running and the incredible amount of upfront capital needed before even starting up the mine. If a company is interested in getting into the field there isn't a fast path in because the companies can't just decide to go into the business and then go to the "REE refining machinery store" and buy the equipment and have them get set up. All the machinery in chemical manufacturing plants (REE refining counts as chemical engineering so hear me out) has a long path in order to reach the optimum design. Ill outline the gist of this here:
Lab Scale Testing: This is laboratory scale testing in which very small batches are prepared testing different procedures and methods in order to find the optimum refining process for the goals of the operation. This is when the deciding of the catalysts, solvents, additive chemicals, etc is done in order to decide what to do to the ore to get the best product.
Pilot Plant Design and Testing: This step in the design process is designing and building a small scale model of machinery to run the process decided upon in lab scale testing in order to determine different operating conditions, determine control points, etc. This is when different tests and procedures are determined and also a proof of concept to begin economic calculations for designing the next step.
Full scale design and building: This is when the full size, real-deal machinery is designed and constructed. But again, there is not "REE refining manufacturing store" to get much of this machinery. Refining plants are custom designed (minus certain machinery like pumps and basic ass shit like that) and custom built. These are custom designed, custom fabricated large scale machinery designed in every aspect from material, area, volume, and depth in order to lower manufacturing costs while also allowing for 24/7 continuous operation. The 24/7 operation aspect is important because it is why the machinery is designed so meticulously. The most economic operations are ones that require little down time and little maintenance and a lot of work is put in to optimize this aspect. That means it takes even more time to produce.
Permitting and Certification: Now at this point the company is years into the development of REE refining, but they still can't start operating despite the entire operation up and running. In the US, now the lovely and very fast government gets to come in. Mining and refining operations don't operate under OSHA rules and procedures, they get to operate under OSHA's much meaner, expensive, and safety prone brother, the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Government inspectors have to come in and permit and certify EVERY PIECE OF MACHINERY, inspect every single moving part and permit them, and do a shit ton of other stuff for the government to allow you to begin operations. Now due to the stimulus bill's provisions toward stimulating REE capabilities in the United states I assume that MSHA will be (or already has been) told to prioritize REE companies and they will probably be fast tracked, but even fast tracking them will take a lot of time. In addition EPA has to come in and sign off on the environmental plans of the company and probably even more government entities will have to come in to sign off on stuff that was past my exposure when I interned in the field.
Now you've seen how long it would take to get up and running, but another constraint worth mentioning is who does these? Larger Chemical or mining companies (Dow, DuPont, Chemours, BASF, etc) looking to enter the field probably have their own design teams that would be able to do it in house. Smaller, non-conglomerate entities would have to hire a chemical engineering design/consulting firm to come in and do the designing, write the procedures, and train the production engineers and operators. That means there is some decent intellectual constraints as to how many people have the know-how to design at the rate needed to scale up. Here is what is important, any entity trying to enter the sector will have enormous upfront costs in buying the land, designing the plant, buying the machinery like excavators, dump trucks, pipelines, pay employees well before starting due to training on the machinery. Im not sure the exact amounts of money needed but it would easily be in the 100s of millions at least. Then once all that upfront capital is sourced, plant designed, people trained, etc the operation would take YEARS to get out of all that debt and achieve meaningful positive cash flow. It is only a matter of time for $MP to have significant domestic competition, but by the time these operations could begin operating $MP will be so far ahead in production and have a significantly stronger balance sheet than these companies could have. $MP will remain years ahead of any other domestic competitors, even though competition will come. TLDR: At current outlook supply growth won't match demand growth and even if more competitors pop up to compete it'll take years to start operating and even more years to match $MP's ability. TLDR on the TLDR: Not enough people finding special rock. More people want special rock than can get special rock. They pay more for special rock.
$MP's competitors, both domestic and international
A large argument that bears like to make is that competition is coming in the US, and they are 100% correct.... but it won't matter because AGAIN this is a commodity play, not a tech company. They make magnets, their revenue will depend on the price of their product. Buyers from this are not looking at $MP like you would look at $TSLA vs. $NIO or apple vs android where you could argue one is better than the other or consumers will adopt one over the other. There isn't brand recognition, increased utility, or consumer favorites in magnets, they're fucking magnets. Think about it like another commodity, lumber. If you go to $HD to buy some wood you aren't staring at two different planks of the same type of tree and picking one because of which timber company felled it or which milling company milled it. You just buy lumber and go home because it is wood. A timber company isn't outright threatened by another timber company popping up, as long as the demand-supply dynamic in the market stays the same the first timber company is unaffected. That is why it won't matter WHEN more domestic and international competitors pop up. As long as demand outstrips supply then commodity companies will make more and more money. Now I am not trying to bullshit people so I'll discuss the international and domestic competition, but Ill explain more in depth why i don't give a shit about them. Domestic: The ticker that cannot be named due to it being banned. If you take a look at that company it is a Uranium producer that is going to re-purpose machinery onsite from uranium production to REE production and they have successfully done pilot plant level processing. However if you analyze their production numbers you'll see that the scale they plan on producing is not quite at the level $MP will. They plan on refining 15,000 tons of ore per year with an estimated 55% REE concentration, which leaves an estimated 8,250 tons of REE per year, of which 22% is NdP (all their numbers not mine), which leaves annual production of 1,815 tons/yr. These numbers are pretty good and I do own a stake in this company because I like the potential, but its scale is not quite the scale of $MP. $MP is predicting a run rate of 6,075 tons/yr of NdPr, so yes the banned ticker is a decent competitor but its only predicting to be 1/3 the size of $MP annual production volume. A downside of the banned ticker is that they still are focusing on Uranium production so its not a pure REE play, but Uranium has a pretty decent bull case for the future so i don't want to slander that ticker too much. However, again, these are commodity plays, $MP having competition, even domestic, doest really affect their business plans or bull case. Additionally, the banned ticker is sourcing its ore rom Chemours' location in GA, but getting milled in Utah, so this is a long term inefficiency to consider as well that $MP won't have to worry about once their stage 2 REO mill is complete. the banned tickers financial health is pretty decent, but its market cap is $516M at close 1/4 which is just slightly above amount of cash on hand $MP had at the end of Q3 2020, $502M. That company is more of an investment opportunity than a competitor, if its even worth investing in. Other emerging domestic competitors: link to article explaining them all Im not going to go deep into each one but you can see that many are slowed down to the process I explained above about how expensive and time consuming it is to reach operational status. These companies will be coming online, but won't be profitable for a while and won't be able to provide the same returns to investors for even longer. International competitors: Lynas Corp. This is an Australian mining company that has also received pentagon funds to improve the non-China production capacity. They trade over the counter and are a real deal competitor and also worth investing in but their growth potential isn't as clear or easy as in the US. They have pentagon funding more so out of desperation by the pentagon to get more production in the western world than loving to invest in an Australian company. In the future I would imagine a lot of this government support will go toward US based companies. International competitors: all the china ones. yes they produce the largest amount of material in the world and do it the cheapest but this is the result of none to very little environmental protection. Once the supply chain can go "mine to magnet" many companies will look to diminish their exposure to chinese companies to ensure their supply chains are not at the whims of the Chinese government. In addition, $MP is the cleanest REE mine in the world and a lot of environmentally conscious companies will want to support clean mined REE's and once domestic production is high enough there could be regulations passed to further incentivize purchasing domestically produced REE's. All these companies were included in the forecast of supply in 2030. Even with these companies coming online $MP is still positioned for incredible returns. TLDR: Yes competition is coming, but there is already competition. Its also a commodity play so its not facing replacement or redundancy like many other growth markets TLDR on the TLDR: Others find special rock. Your special rock still worth many tendies. You still get many tendies.
Why this is NOT molycorp 2.0
The most common point of argument against this company is that people bring up the fact that the mine $MP operates used to be run by Molycorp, which went bankrupt. However if you read into that transaction it really isn't that scary. Molycorp did go under but this was in a period of price instability and they were not running as good of an operation. Molycorp operated during the 2010-2011 peak of REE's when china restricted supply. Molycorp stock went up a ton in addition to their revenue and thus they decided to invest in milling capabilities to create REO's (I know this is $MP's plan but don't get scared yet). Because of US EPA restrictions it was wildly expensive and at bankruptcy they had $1.7B in investments into capital projects to improve their refining capability, but the subsequent REE price collapse when china "turned the taps back on" to the world supply caused them to not afford operation. The site then changed hands back and forth until it was bought by $MP's current management for $40M. They then invested in it after literally buying for less than pennies on the dollar and got it up and running more efficiently than before. Last quarter Q3 2020 they ran 3.2x the REE concentrate production volume than Molycorp ever did: ​ https://s25.q4cdn.com/570172628/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/MP-3Q20-Earnings-Deck-FINAL-11.23.2020.pdf They got to buy over $1.7B worth of investments for $40M and have proven they have turned those investments into operating profit. In addition, previous operations prioritized Cerium production for FCC catalysts. $MP has transitioned the goal product to be NdPr as it has much better growth potential to give it long term possibility. In addition, the market climate Molycorp operated under was not as forgiving as now. Back then there wasn't the tailwind of increasing EV adoption, or the rise of other high tech growth sector reliant on REE's. Molycorp was too early and inefficient to win in the market and didn't have anywhere close to the amount of governmental support for the industry. There is bipartisan support on all levels, i mentioned this a bit in my last DD post, but since then - and this is big and shows the scale of gov support- THE LAST STIMULUS BILL HAD $800M IN SUPPORT OF INCREASING DOMESTIC REE PRODUCTION! Molycorp didn't have anywhere close to this level of government support. And again, the pentagon invested $9M into $MP to help fund their REO mill because the pentagon views the ability to refine REO's as a matter of national security.
Discussing Concerns about Biden Presidency
People who say this shit clearly have no idea what they are talking about. Biden (or his puppet masters but who cares money is all green) has said he supports REE mining multiple times source. His team knows their big environmental initiatives rely on REE production and that domestic production is important to keep American industry at the whims of China. Yeah Trump was more hawkish with china but lets not act like a democratic presidency is going to let china walk all over the US or that Biden and other democrats will stop their push for EV's and clean energy. REE's are a cornerstone piece to so many of Biden's plans there is no way he turns his back on this company.
Discussion of Shenghe Resources and China and their relationships with $MP
The one real concern that people have is their partnership with Shenghe Resources where Shenghe has agreed to buy all $MP concentrate through 2021 and shenghe is a stakeholder in $MP. Many view this as a negative, but i think it should be seen as a good way to ensure survival in the gap between now and the final magnet production. A big issue would be if China chose to stop importing the MP concentrate, which would give MP no customers. Since this would adversely affect Shenge it makes it less likely and also the fact that MP produces 15% of the world's REE concentrate it would hurt the supply in china, which is huge. In fact, China removed their 25% tariff on importing REE material, read this source as it also shows how china is buying up all the concentrate they can. Japan has the capability to go from REO to NdPr magnet as well so if china ends up fucking MP, starting in 2022 when their REO site is in operation then they will be able to sell their REO to Japanese companies to bridge the gap before they have their own magnet making capability. ​ https://s25.q4cdn.com/570172628/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/MP-3Q20-Earnings-Deck-FINAL-11.23.2020.pdf China is not likely to fuck MP and stop buying their concentrate as it will hurt china's wallet and ability to produce goods while only increasing the US government support for going mine to magnet domestically. China realistically views their dominance as ending at some point now, but they know they will still be able to control the market because of their scale regardless of whether they buy MP concentrates or not. Also, if Shenghe doesn't buy their concentrates then they forfeit their stake in MP. they wouldn't be allowed to sell them on the market, the shares would just disappear, so it would effectively be a massive stock buyback and as long as the REO mill is complete then they just sell to Japanese magnet makers.
Mine Life discussion
Their S-1 states that at current proven reserves they have about 47 years of mine life left. That can be grown from drilling and exploration of more mineable material, which they stated they plan on doing. in addition, if they for some reason don't find more mineable ore on their land and don't buy more land with ore, then they could simply refine ore from other mines as the real cost barrier isn't the digging out of the ground, it is the milling.
TLDR
$MP will to the moon over the next few years. Postions: shares for virgins and LEAPs for chads. ​ Edit: addressing $QS collapse today (1/4 after a -40% on $QS) and the associated EV infrastructure. I think $QS hitting the shitter, well, predictable. People flooded to it as a result of attempting to find a parallel way to play the rise of EV's without understanding the company. $QS is a solid state battery technology, but I have never held a stake in it because, well, all it is is an idea or concept. It fell today as a result of a report criticizing the basis of its technology and I have to agree, the tech is not proven and even if it works as advertised there is a question of whether it could ever solidify its valuation, even after its collapse today. Solid state batteries MAY be the future, but for now their real place is in university and R&D laboratories as the tech is not proven to work as advertised. They are in the same situation as liquid metal batteries, cool ideas without the proof they will be successful in the market. HOWEVER, $MP is a way to play EV's & Renewable energy without the risk because $MP is not relying on scientific breakthroughs, it is a commodity producer. They don't care who wins the EV race, the battery tech or company that wins the battery race, or the wind energy companies that win contracts, all they care about is the mass adoption fo those technologies. It is a unique way to play these trends without having to bet on winners or losers in the field as you're betting solely on the industry. The company is positioned to benefit greatly regardless of who wins and lets be real, the market is incredibly saturated with companies that won't win. Look at all the different EV makers big and small, the different battery companies, etc. I have a tough believing that all the small EV makers will have a shot when the large auto companies get more involved. I believe the best way to see profit without that risk is through symmetrical bets with no breakthroughs needed, just the market to develop EDIT 2: Further DD/ another take. Yeah maybe 1 person will actually read it but it’s a lot shorter than mine, really won’t take long to read the thread. It is not my DD but rather an obscure Twitter account I have no connection to but they bring up further interesting bull arguments and address current valuation better than I can. I have no finance background so I didn’t try to pin a price or movement. https://twitter.com/dawn_capital/status/1346134740659818496?s=21 Edit 3: Research report from brand essence research estimates that REE market size is expected to reach $20.6 Billion by 2025, significantly higher the the 11 billion size from 2019 with a CAGR of 8.2%. MP currently produces 15% of the ore in the world and in 2022 is expected to be milling REO. Let’s say global production does increase and $MP doesn’t expand out and falls to 10% of global supply. That’s still about $2 Billion in revenue with higher margins than they operate on right now because of REO production.... it’s a tendie mine🚀🚀🚀 https://brandessenceresearch.biz/chemicals-and-materials/top-growth-on-rare-metals-market-size-and-share/Summary Disclaimer: this is my thoughts on the company and market, yet I am on this site and also retarded. I am long via shares and call and am a true believer in them but best in mind my confirmation bias. Not investment advice, do your own DD, buying and selling $MP is your own decision
The Trump Campaign's Accusations of Voter Fraud: An Exhaustive Analysis and Fact Check
Full disclosure: I'm not a Trump fan in the slightest. I don't spend an extraordinary amount of time talking about that fact on Reddit; but some of my comments do indeed express this view, either by way of serious commentary or lighthearted joking. At the same time, I take impartial analysis and fact checking extremely seriously. I always push back against weak and/or unfounded accusations that are made against Trump, as I do for all other political figures — something I've done both on this account and on FactCheckHuman, my dedicated fact checking account. Usually, my fact checks don't run much more than a couple of paragraphs. In some instances, though, I've done ultra–deep dives into an issue. This current post can certainly be considered one of these. As with any other fact check, the ultimate aim of these write-ups is simply to determine what is or isn't true; or what is or isn't likely to be true. At the same time, this post also genuinely intends to persuade people of the speciousness and toxicity of the Trump campaign's current claims about voter fraud. To tell the truth, I kind of approached it as a synthesis of conversations I've been having with my conservative friends and family members, who are really on board with the Trump position on election integrity. In any case, not everything is as simple as finding the facts and evidence, and letting these speak for themselves. Ideally that's how we want things to be; but often times there are a number of ambiguities that prevent this from being done so easily, in terms of varying interpretations that the evidence permits. In these instances, we basically have to make a reasonable judgment call about what's likely to be the case: educated guesses that try to fill in some of the gaps in the evidence. Even here, though, I try to be similarly rigorous, and take a lead from what I call critical parsimony. In short, this tries to find the most "normal" and least sensational/conspiratorial explanation for something, while also bearing in mind some of the complexities and anomalies that might complicate the issue. Often times, these two different or seemingly contradictory aspects come together when we encounter some event or phenomenon that superficially seems exceptional and counterintuitive, but which turns out to be much less unusual than it appears to be. In short, this allows extraordinary events to be, well, rare. In line with that last point, one of the most insightful things we can look at is events and situations, usually from the recent past, which can help contextualize and elucidate various things that have taken place in the current election — and things which have taken place in terms of people's reaction to this. So things like looking back to the 2016 or 2012 election can be crucial here, or other historical events that can give precedent for what's happening in 2020, and shed light on it. I suppose the most obvious point of departure for this post is what we might describe as a main "narrative" that Donald Trump and the Trump campaign and its supporters have advanced in response to the election itself: that the election has been unusually fraught with irregularities and duplicitous/fraudulent intentions. Responsibility for these irregularities have almost always been placed at the feet of Democrats, and is clearly taken to represent an effort on Democrats' part to steal the election. Obviously, I think a lot of Trump supporters and conservatives have accepted this narrative more or less at face value. Even before getting into some of the actual specifics of the claims of voter fraud, though, one thing that I've called attention to from the outset is how we might first consider the initial motivations behind the narrative itself a bit more critically, and how it comes together in the first place. Not to get too philosophical or anything, but it's worth pointing out that whenever we have a political "narrative" like this, it's somewhat of an artificial construct. A bunch of different phenomena or allegations are brought together and crammed into one explanatory framework. Nuance or ambiguity becomes something secondary to promoting the narrative. Far too often, the cast is full of stereotyped protagonists and antagonists, divided along party lines. Further, it's important not to lose sight of everything that's paved the way for such a bitter partisan narrative to emerge in the first place. The electoral process itself probably never been neutral affair, and is still intensely partisan in numerous aspects — from the emergence of the Electoral College itself, to the crafting and enforcing of state voting laws and guidelines. At lower levels, issues of gerrymandering have been a serious problem; and at all levels, different political parties have fought in the courts to try to influence voter eligibility and voter turnout in their own favor. In tandem with this, beyond the judiciary itself, political parties also wage many of these same battles in the court of public opinion. In this current instance, the overarching narrative in question — of Democrat attempts to unlawfully steal the election — indeed seems to target public opinion above all else. And it far predates the 2020 election itself, too. Even before running in 2015, Trump had previously suggested that President Obama's original election was assisted by fraudulent votes being cast by dead voters. During the 2016 Iowa caucus, Trump accused Ted Cruz and his campaign of having committed fraud, and called for a "new election" or that the results be nullified; and he leveled a similar accusation against Marco Rubio in the Florida primary, too. In August of 2016, regarding the general election, Trump claimed that "[t]he only way we can lose . . . Pennsylvania . . . is if cheating goes on." He continued to frequent challenge the integrity of the election leading up to November; and even after his victory, he stated that he "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally" — implying there had been upwards of 3 million "illegal" votes. Very closely echoing what we'd see in 2020, after the 2018 Florida Senatorial election, Trump stated that "[t]he Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" In May and June 2020, Trump began ramping up claims that fraudulent mail-in ballots would be printed in vast droves, both by domestic entities and "maybe by the millions by foreign powers." Again, this would be insisted on time and time again; and finally, echoing his sentiments in late November 2016, on November 7 Trump declared that "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!", and later reiterating that he received 71,000,000 "legal" votes. (An exhaustive catalogue of Trump's allegations re: voter fraud can be found here.) It's hard to deny that Trump's public-facing view has always proposed voter fraud and irregularities as ubiquitous things affecting a large number of elections. But it's precisely the one-sidedness of his seeing monsters in every shadow here that points toward another explanation. Trump's accusatory or even paranoid worldview can be seen as something like a microcosm reflecting a much wider trend in historical political rhetoric around elections. Even when Trump is taken out of the picture altogether, the propagandistic function of allegations of election fraud has still been frequently noted by a number of scholars and historians who specialize in election studies. In a 2007 paper for the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, for example, American constitutional law scholar Justin Levitt calls attention to the emotional resonance that claims of voter fraud can elicit — and also notes its prevalence because of this:
Allegations of election-related fraud make for enticing press. Voter fraud, in particular, has the feel of a bank heist caper: roundly condemned but technically fascinating, and sufficiently lurid to grab and hold headlines. Perhaps because these stories are dramatic, voter fraud makes a popular scapegoat. In the aftermath of a close election, losing candidates are often quick to blame voter fraud for the results, and legislators cite voter fraud as justification for various new restrictions on the exercise of the franchise. ("The Truth About Voter Fraud," abstract)
Similarly, Raymond Gastil, writing in an article in the journal Studies In Comparative International Development in 1990, noted that
in many new or transitional countries, it is standard practice for the opposition to point out before the election how the government will "steal" the election. If the opposition loses, it will then make strenuous claims that the election was stolen. Thus the ARENA party in El Salvador has claimed fraud in each of the several elections in the 1980s; most recently it won the election and yet claimed that it was robbed of the greater win to which it was entitled. Claims and counterclaims of this nature are seldom subject to verification, even for those on the ground.
Although the U.S. obviously isn't a new or transitional country, it's impossible not to see close parallels to the accusations of Trump here — especially the similarity between the claim of having been "robbed of the greater win to which it was entitled" and Trump sweetening his electoral win by insisting that he won the popular vote, too, so long as "illegal" votes are deducted from the tally. But when these claims are put to the test, in actuality, scholarly studies have long demonstrated that the prevalence of true voter fraud in general in U.S. elections is minuscule. A Brennan Center for Justice special report on voter fraud compiles and links to many if not most major studies on voter fraud in the U.S., concluding that together these studies paint a clear picture that voter fraud "very rarely happens." (See also my Endnote for more on this.) So, statistics paints a much different picture than political rhetoric would have us believe. If the bogeyman here is more of a phantasm than anything, however, it's still a powerful tool for influencing electorates: "voter fraud and voter suppression allegations are strongly used as a mobilization tool by parties during significant elections (Hasen, 2012; Levitt, 2007)." (This quote is taken from Fogarty, Kimball and Kosnik's article "The Media, Voter Fraud, and the U.S. 2012 Elections," published in the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. This article is especially worth reading to get a bit more background about some of the things that set the stage for the 2016 and 2020 elections and their rhetoric.) One last thing: Population growth and other factors have led to a vastly increased number of voters over the past couple of decades. In 2000, just a little over 100 million people voted, while in the current election this number went up to 130 million. Further, the transition to electronic voting and the use of tabulating machines has increased significantly during this time, too. Because of these things — all further complicated by COVID this year — both statistics and common wisdom alone should lead us to expect a large number of voting irregularities. But it's also important not to conflate irregularities with voter fraud. Irregularities are simply errors, that don't necessarily require bad human intentions at all. However, with realpolitik at its ugly peak in the election cycle, this offers an opportunity for political pundits to read deliberate ill intentions into these incidents, whether by innuendo or explicit accusation. But it should also be kept in mind that if irregularities are unintentional, and if political affiliation in the U.S. is split roughly equally, then these irregularities should also affect the two political parties roughly equally; probably in similar proportions. Finally, the increasing partisan divide between media outlets, along with their selective coverage, probably makes it easy to overlook (or perhaps forget) the great number of lawsuits routinely filed by both Democratic and Republican attorneys, both in the lead-up to the election and in the wake of its inevitable irregularities: efforts to block or secure votes from voting populations likely to favor one or the other of the two parties. It should be clear here, then, that an overemphasis on irregularities and claims and fraud are often treated as rhetorical and legal tools in service of political self-interests. With all these things considered — and again, even if we set the political situation in 2020 aside, along with some of the specific claims of voter fraud that are currently being made — this should still give us ample reason to rethink how accusations of voter fraud function more broadly: what's in it for those making these accusations, politically speaking; how these claimants often see little use for factual accuracy or measured analysis here; and how this perpetuates toxic discourse and bad-faith assumptions. Claims of Election Irregularities and Fraud in 2020: A Catalogue and Commentary So this second part of the post is going to be a sort of compendium of a lot of the major allegations of voting irregularities and voter fraud that have been circulating, followed by a critical analysis of these. While some of these irregularities are clearly broad and would affect both political parties, I'm pretty sure that almost every one of these claims has circulated widely in conservative and/or pro-Trump sources; and most have been interpreted as a partisan attack on election integrity. I'm sure that there have been other incidents or alleged incidents that have circulated on the left; but this post is already extremely long and took quite a while to write, and I don't want to make more work for myself. I'll probably be updating this in the days to come, as more info on various things comes out. Finally, as a sort of transition point between my probably-far-too-long prologue and the catalogue, I think it can be very instructive to take a look at a compendium of voting irregularities in 2016 — to help get some additional context and perspective for how similar issues can and did surface in the 2020 election. Claim: It's suspicious how additional Biden votes have kept magically appearing, long after election day, pushing his total over Trump's prior total. Response: I've put this in the initial position because it seems to be one of the most common observations of accusations: it was one of the first that Trump made, and which he continued to repeat. But among all the different accusations here, this has one of the most mundane explanations. Prior to the election itself, and noting various state laws pertaining to the tabulation of mail-in votes, various commentators called attention to a likely phenomenon of delayed results for mail-in ballots — which have skewed heavily Democrat. Dave Wassermann noted, for example, that
in northern battlegrounds such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin . . . officials are not permitted to begin processing mail ballots until the day of the election (or, in Michigan's case, the day before). In those states, a "red mirage" of Trump-heavy Election Day votes could linger until larger metro counties report huge tranches of early ballots later in the evening.
(As for mail-in votes skewing highly Democrat, this also has mundane explanations. For reasons that are less than clear, on numerous occasions Trump strongly discouraged his supporters from voting by mail. Unfortunately I don't have the room to fully get into this, though there's certainly some interesting/surprising data about just how overwhelmingly blue mail-in voting skewed even in a number of red strongholds.) Further, sometimes this claim has appeared in the bit more specific iteration, suggesting that it wasn't just suspicious how Biden votes kept coming in to counteract Trump's tally, but also how precisely Biden's total crept past Trump — as if it was known exactly how many votes Biden needed to just barely scrape past him. But this also has a deceptively simple explanation: the extremely slim margin of victory for Biden in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania basically mirrored the same ultra-slim margin of victory for Trump in these same states in 2016, but now just the other way around. Honing in on PA, for example, we can also see how Biden just marginally outperformed Clinton in terms of cutting into Trump's lead in many red areas. Even the 2016 election in Georgia saw a significant blue shift, especially in the Atlanta metropolitan area — which presaged Biden's performance in 2020, also bolstered by the efforts of those like Stacey Abrams to register an enormous number of new GA voters. Claim: Some counties saw a suspicious or even impossible ratio of votes for Biden. Response: The most widespread claim of this pertained to Michigan returns as posted by Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) in the early morning of November 4. A screenshot of the returns at two different times here appeared to show the DDHQ vote tally for Biden go up by 128,000 votes from the previous update, but with no change at all to Trump's total. Later that morning, it was clear what had happened: shortly after the original entry error (in Shiawassee County), DDHQ had subtracted the erroneous inflated vote update for Biden — something that obviously required no alteration of the tally for Trump. However, the screenshot that circulated gave the misleading impression that it was an addition of Biden votes, instead of a subtraction. (My original detailed explanation of this can be seen on FactCheckHuman/.) A similar claim has been made around the same time in the Wisconsin totals. Here a chart is linked, and it's suggested that there was a huge vertical surge of votes for Biden in the hour or so before 6:00 am, but with no change at all in Trump votes. But the explanation here is almost goofy in its simplicity: as seen at other points in the chart, the blue Biden line actually covers the red Trump line at various points. The big vertical Biden vote jump in question is almost certainly simply covering up a smaller vertical jump for Trump, and then continues to obscure it until it ends (otherwise we'd be able to see the horizontal trajectory of the red line). I've lost the original source of this, but I had actually saved another chart which shows the same phenomenon of big vertical leaps, only this time with the red Trump line obscuring the blue Biden line. Claim: The significantly lower number of total votes for Democratic Senators compared to Biden votes in individual states is indicative of something sketchy — when compared to the much smaller mismatch between Trump/Senator votes. Response: Several articles — e.g. "Swing States Show Biden Votes Suspiciously Far Exceeding Democrat Down-Ticket Votes" — note that there was a significant difference in the ratio of Trump votes to GOP Senator votes in Michigan and Georgia (nearly an equal number of votes in both), compared with the ratio of Biden votes relative to votes for the Democrat Senator in these states (significantly lower). But this seems to be part of a wider trend of Democrats failing to pay a similar interest in down-ballot candidates. In the 2016 Georgia election, the ratio difference was significantly more drastic: 2,089,104 votes for Trump and 2,135,806 for Isakson, versus 1,877,963 for Clinton but only 1,599,726 for Barksdale — some 275,000 fewer votes for Barksdale than for Clinton. In Wisconsin, there were nearly 75,000 more votes for Ron Johnson than Trump, but 20,000 fewer for Russ Feingold. In PA in 2016, there were 20,000 fewer votes for the GOP Senator as for Trump, compared to 60,000 fewer for the Democratic Senate candidate than for Clinton. (Surprisingly, I haven't been able to find any commentary on this phenomenon. If anyone knows any, please direct me to it.) Presumably having tabulated similar data from the other states, Trump attorney Sidney Powell has recently noted that there were 450,000 ballots "in the key states that miraculously only have a mark for Joe Biden on them and no other candidate." But based on what I've noted above, I'd be willing to bet that this isn't truly miraculous. Also, as a fascinating fact, in the 2016 election, 1.75 million (!) voters refrained from voting for a Presidential candidate entirely, only voting down-ballot. And frankly, I find it easier to imagine someone only voting for a Presidential candidate, than only voting down-ballot. Claim: There have been over 3,000 instances of voter fraud in Nevada, with non-NV residents voting in the NV election. Response: According to the official Nevada Secretary of State site, "Nevada residents who are students in another state or are otherwise temporarily residing in another state may vote in the 2020 Nevada general election." Similarly, apparently a look at the complete list of 3,000+ voters here turns up a number of overseas military personnel; though when I took a look at that, I didn't really see many. Even further, a fact check of this same claim by PolitiFact also notes that "[p]eople who move within 30 days before an election can cast a vote in their new state, or in their prior state of residence, in-person or via absentee ballot." (In this regard, one of the statements by former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt may also be of interest, which was a bit more specific in noting that "[w]e are also certain there are thousands of people whose votes have been counted who have moved out of Clark County during the pandemic" — emphasis mine.) Finally, perhaps also worth noting is that there are actually allegations of irregularities in the attainment of information in the first place — at least in the version of the criminal referral to AG William Barr that Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh submitted. Claim: The votes of those in Arizona who filled out a ballot by hand using a Sharpie were/would be invalidated. Response: Various Arizona county officials have disputed that this would automatically invalidate a vote. That being said, there are indeed reports of tabulating machines rejecting votes after voters used Sharpies and noted a bleed-through of the ink. This finds some additional support from the official Pima County Twitter, where it was written that "[f]elt pens are discouraged because the ink can bleed through." However, another source states that
According to a video Maricopa County published on Oct. 24, Sharpies — at home and at the ballot box — are compatible with their scanners, and were actually the best choice for filling out ballots, due to their fast-drying ink.
Claim Some of the votes of those in Maricopa County, Arizona were rejected due to stray marks or (possibly) ink bleed-through; yet some poll workers seemed unable to help voters remedy this and cast a valid vote, due to their own confusion about how the tabulating machines worked. Response: This is the subject of a lawsuit by the Trump campaign and RNC, etc.; and from a cursory read of the complaint, it seems to be well-founded. I have no clue what the remedy for this would be, though. Claim: Poll workers have seen brazenly filling out ballots themselves. Response: Several PolitiFact fact checks (1, 2) have already covered this. In short, it's standard operating procedure for the voting choices of damaged ballots to be transferred/transcribed onto a new, non-damaged ballot. This can even happen on a massive scale, as this report on the 2012 Florida election notes:
During the election, the county’s ballot printer sent out around 60,000 absentee ballots with a typo that could not be read by the county’s tabulation machines. Because of this mistake, county workers had to copy about 35,000 of the votes by hand onto new ballots.
This also intersects with Arizona's SharpieGate slightly: one fact check re: SharpieGate noted that
According to the state's elections procedures manual, if a felt-tip pen mark does bleed through, the ballot will likely get sent for duplication. An election worker will fill out a new ballot using the voter's choices that will be read properly by tabulation machines.
I'm not sure what measures are in place to ensure that the poll workers don't switch the votes in these instances (besides any poll observers who could see this); but in any case, the "risk" of one's vote being switched seems to be equal for Democrat and Republican voters — something that was also noted by the Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (Republican). In any case, as for more on spoiled ballots: a Project Veritas article (which I can't link due to a Reddit-wide ban) claims that its journalists had found 8 to 10 spoiled ballots in Quakertown, PA. I'm mentioning this here because I had been sort of curious what's supposed to be done with spoiled ballots; and apparently, as the article notes, "Pennsylvania law requires spoiled ballots to be held for 22 months after an election." I know a 22 months retention for some election materials is indeed found in federal law, though I haven't seen anything else that specifies what's to be done with spoiled ballots. Claim(s): Donald Trump and others shared reports that there had been some sort of unspecified reporting error in a batch of votes in Fulton County, GA. Later it was stated in ambiguous language on ABC7's Twitter account that this reporting error "has taken @JoeBiden's lead in Georgia from 4,000 votes to 7,000 votes." This was interpreted by many to mean that the (correction of this) error was actually in Biden's favor. Response: What actually appears to have happened is that the reporting error pertained to votes within the batch that originally had given Biden a 3,000 vote lead — but it wasn't that there were actually 3,000 votes that were mistabulated. The true number of affected votes within the batch appears to have been 342; and there's actually no information as to what the Biden/Trump split here was. Claim: Glitches in voting machine software should cause things like crashes, and not the sort of vote switching that's been reported. Response: Due to the complicated nature of some of the tabulation errors, etc., news reports have sometimes mistakenly ascribed these to software glitches — when later, more accurate info comes out which gives other causes. For example, a Detroit Free Press article originally suggested that the results of a local race in Oakland County, MI had been overturned when it was discovered that a "computer error" or "technical glitch" had accidentally given votes to the Democratic candidate, and not the Republican one. But an article in the NYTimes from yesterday actually reiterates how this and several other reported errors actually have human error as the primary or sole cause here. Re: that local election in Oakland County, it notes that
County election workers had mistakenly counted votes from the city of Rochester Hills, Mich., twice, according to the Michigan Department of State. The workers later spotted the error.
That being said, it's also not exactly true that things like vote-flipping can only be caused by human error. In the section "The Challenge of Aging Machines" in a 2014 Brennan Center report on voting machine risks, for example, this discusses instances of vote-flipping that come from calibration errors caused by touch screens that shift and degrade over time. An NPR article from 2016 makes similar observations, while also reporting on how this led to widespread accusations of these votes instead being deliberately "rigged." [Edit:] I figured it was worth it to actually expand this section by looking back at incidents prior to 2020 wherein one candidate's votes were mistakenly given to another (and other related phenomena) in initial tallies — whether this was due to human error, machine error, or sometimes both in conjunction. It's actually somewhat hard to paint a comprehensive picture of previous Election Night reporting errors like this. Those having never made the news in the first place were probably quickly forgotten. Perhaps there's a trove of early reports of these left to be (re)discovered on Twitter; but this can only take us back so far, considering its fairly recent rise in popularity. However, we can still find records of these in various publications. This internal report by CBS News on its Election Night 2000 coverage, discussing the reporting of votes from various FL counties, for examples, notes that
Vote reports from Volusia County severely understated Gore’s actual total when a faulty computer memory card reported votes that were off by thousands. That precinct, Number 216, subtracted more than 16,000 votes from Gore’s total and added votes to Bush’s total. In addition, an apparent reporting error in Brevard County reduced Gore’s total by an additional 4,000 votes.
It also briefly notes other errors, too, such as
In Massachusetts, 30,000 votes were left uncounted in 51 precincts because of human error. In New Mexico, election officials thought that a handwritten notation about absentee votes from one precinct indicated 120 votes for Gore, when the actual number was 620.
An article in the Denver Post re: the 2016 Colorado primary notes "a reporting error on caucus night":
The problem . . . occurred when a volunteer at Byers Middle School in Denver punched the wrong vote tallies from 10 precincts into the party’s interactive voice response system for the presidential preference poll. The state party’s website reported March 1 that Sanders won 14,624 votes, or 54 percent, in Denver County and Clinton took 12,097 votes, or 45 percent. But the corrected numbers for Denver County give Sanders 15,194 votes, or 56.5 percent, and Clinton with 11,527, or 43 percent, according to official party results.
A Brennan Center report on voting machine failures includes a very long list of human and machine errors in various U.S. elections. Among some of the most significant of those listed include the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election, where
The Birmingham News and the New York Times reported that an error in the way officials downloaded vote data from a computer cartridge led to an incorrect initial tally of votes in the gubernatorial election. The initial tally of the votes showed that the Democratic incumbent had received 19,070 votes in Baldwin County. A reexamination of the vote tallies showed that the incumbent received only 12,736 votes, which gave the victory to his Republican challenger.
Further, in the 2004 Presidential and congressional elections,
local officials discovered an error in eight Diebold scanners that had been used on 208,446 absentee ballots. According to the North County Times, votes were miscounted in both the Democratic presidential primary race and the primary race for the Republican U.S. Senate seat. A recount was conducted, revealing that “2,821 absentee ballots cast for Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry were actually counted for Dick Gephardt.” Similarly, in the Senate race, 68 votes for one candidate and six votes for another were credited to a third candidate. The Union Tribune reported that multiple scanners caused the error, feeding data into the tabulation system at once.
An article on irregularities in the 2018 midterms in GA begins
To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia’s election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens. On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race.
Claim: A very serious instance of (electronic) vote-flipping has taken place in Antrim County, MI, where 6,000 Trump votes were accidentally flipped to Biden. This has been one of the most widely reported instances recently, usually accompanied by a note that 47 other counties in Michigan used the same faulty software as that responsible for the vote-flipping in Antrim County. Response: More accurately, the actual votes themselves weren't switched at all here; and for that matter, the error seems to have been more human than electronic. What appears to have happened is that a county clerk hadn't manually updated the software which was responsible for compiling the votes for reporting; and consequently, "even though the tabulators counted all the ballots correctly, those accurate results were not combined properly when the clerk reported unofficial results." [Edit:] A while after writing this, by chance I came across some more info which either sheds more light on all this, or makes the whole thing a bit more complicated (or both). According to this AP article, the President of the company who made the voting software explained that "a minor correction was made to a ballot that caused additional compounding changes to how the software totals and presented the data"; and an article in the NYTimes similarly states that election security experts and state officials concluded "that an election worker had configured ballot scanners and reporting systems with slightly different versions of the ballot." Claim: There was suspicious activity around items and containers brought into a Detroit absentee ballot counting center in the early hours of November 4, after the deadline for these to arrive. Response: This claim — including video footage and pictures — was shared by Eric Trump; and in it it's been intimated that these were fraudulent absentee ballots. However, the man in the video footage has been identified as an employee of Detroit's ABC affiliate WXYZ; and the items in question were his camera equipment. I'm right at the character limit here — continuing in a comment below.
Best CSGO gambling sites! Find the Best CSGO Gambling & Betting Sites In One Place! Just flip a Coin. Welcome to CSGOBestSites.com. A complete list of the Best CSGO Gambling Sites in 2020, where you can bet CSGO items. Use code 'CSBEST' to get free coins or skins on websites. 01. With the slow but steady penetration of the best sports betting sites in USA, things are changing since there will no longer be a demand for illegal bookies. However, just like before, punters in the states that have not made up their mind about online betting can use a VPN service to access the best soccer betting sites USA has seen. American betting sites. Online betting in the United States is split into three different distinct categories. These include the Offshore best online betting sites USA, the Vegas gambling sites and European betting sites. Although the essence might remain the same, as they are all looking to approach US punters, their products and appeal bear many differences. It welcomes seemingly countless bet enthusiasts on a daily basis. #3 SportsBetting.ag. If you’re attempting to pinpoint all of the greatest online sports betting sites going at the moment, then you should take the time to explore SportsBetting.ag right now. US Racing is the best site for horse racing and betting. Compare us to the rest to see why. Bet on horses with 200+ racetracks, $150 Bonus and daily rebates. Mobile phone betting, bet where and when you want. Online Horse Betting Shop Best Buy for electronics, computers, appliances, cell phones, video games & more new tech. In-store pickup & free 2-day shipping on thousands of items. Online horse racing betting is legal in most US states. In fact, licensed horse racing betting sites in the USA have agreements in place with local tracks that allow fans across the country to watch live simulcast races and bet on races held around the country. Best Betting Sites in USA. All of the US sports betting sites on this page are licensed, regulated, and taxed on a state by state basis ensuring that they are regularly tested for fairness, security and a high level of customer service. US legal sports betting sites. Betting Sites USA. MyBookie is one of the newest top online sports betting sites in the market. It was established in 2014 in Costa Rica and is fast growing to compete with other older bet staking sites. The minimum online wager on MyBookie is $10 and the maximum is $1000. For mobile wagers, however, there are no limits. Top 10 list of the best US online sportsbooks and betting apps for American bettors. See the highest rated betting sites and compare sign-up offers available of USA players.
The 10 BEST State Parks in America for RVing - YouTube
Check out all the places seen in this video: https://www.touropia.com/best-places-to-visit-in-usa/Comprised of 50 states, the USA occupies an area that’s onl... This video includes websites to watch free movies. If you’re looking for a free movie to watch, you have many choices. In this video, I’ll show you 10 of the... Americans are mobile people. In fact, the U.S. Census reports that about one in six Americans move each year. Though most moves are local, nearly one-sixth o... On today's episode we take you around the country with us to explore the top 10 BEST State Parks in America for RVing. We visited 40 states and traveled more... Check out the top 7 best snipers in American history! From the best snipers around the world to the most accurate snipers of all time, this top 10 list of sn... Kyle breaks down the best sports betting sites of 2020. He highlights the areas that the sportsbooks excel at and which apps would be best for certain types ... Check out all the places seen in this video: https://www.touropia.com/best-places-to-visit-in-germany/Best known for its famous Oktoberfest and World War II ... D-MAN STUDIOS PRESENTS THE TOP 4 BEST FREE PORN SITES Like Us On Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dmanstudiostxFollow Us On Twitter At http://www.twitter.com... 20 Best Free Camping Spots in USA 2020 UPDATEREAD THE ARTICLE: https://drivinvibin.com/2019/07/15/free-camping/Today we’re talking about free camping! In f... An in depth review of the best US Online Poker sites in 2019. If you're wondering which online poker rooms are the best for Cash, Tournament, and High volume...
