In the new week starting on May 22, the eyes of countless investors are focused on Washington.
The U.S. Congress officially began voting on the Capital Gains Tax Reform Act on this day. At noon East Coast time, the results came out, with 328 votes in favor and 106 votes against, passing by an absolute majority.
The next day, the Senate voted.
69 votes were in favor and 31 were against, the same absolute majority.
According to the U.S. Constitution, if more than two-thirds of the House and Senate vote in favor of a bill, it can still automatically take effect even if it is vetoed by the president. This shows the general trend of this bill.
The White House will certainly not veto this bill.
On May 24, Clinton officially signed the bill and held a press conference at the White House to announce that the new capital gains tax bill came into effect.
The new bill abolishes the 28% fixed capital gains tax rate established during the Reagan tax reform and adopts a two-tier tax rate mechanism. If securities investors hold stocks, bonds and other assets for more than 12 months, the capital gains tax rate is reduced to 15%. If the holding period is less than 12 months, the capital gains tax rate increases to 30%.
In his speech at the press conference, Mr. President said that the new capital gains tax rules will curb short-term speculation in the capital market to the greatest extent, while increasing the activity of the capital market through tax exemptions for benign long-term investors, and can also attract more overseas investors. Capital enters the U.S. capital market to promote economic development in the Commonwealth.
The U.S. stock market has long since left the era of retail investors. Even though the new technology wave in recent years has led to a significant increase in individual investors, only 17% of the overall trading volume of the U.S. stock market at this stage comes from retail investors, and the remaining 83% of the trading volume comes from the United States. and numerous overseas institutional investors.
Because it has little to do with the general public, at least not directly. Under the quiet suppression of many forces, except for some conceivable complaints on the Internet platform and a small amount of criticism in various media, this capital gains tax reform basically has no effect. Caused too many waves.
Of course, there is no shortage of people trying to point the finger at the Westeros system.
The large number of technology stocks held by Simon are now at quite a bubble level according to various opinions, and Westeros has generally held these stocks for more than a year. Calculating the capital gains tax rate, the amount of tax saved is simply difficult to estimate.
It's just that similar voices are even weaker than public opinion's criticism of capital gains tax reform.
After the Hearst family collapsed under the attack of the Westeros system last year, no media dared to easily provoke a ruthless young super tycoon.
The Westeros family has not responded to relevant comments.
However, the public who pays a little attention to entertainment information can feel that these days, Daenerys Entertainment’s two heavyweight films this summer, "Jurassic Park 2" and "Apollo 13", have been heavily promoted. The huge increase in the overwhelming number of advertisements of all types almost overshadows all the other films in this summer season.
nipple.
Or a pacifier.
Then, on May 26, the last trading day of the week, Nokia was officially listed on the Nasdaq exchange.
Since its listing in August 1993, Nokia's shares traded on the London Stock Exchange have experienced two stock splits, one for two and one for three. This stage is still different from the market strategy of later technology companies pursuing high stock prices. It is generally believed that a lower stock price can attract investors to buy. Coupled with the equity changes caused by other options redemptions and small mergers and acquisitions, Nokia's current total share capital has reached 1.169 billion shares.
When Nokia was listed on the Nasdaq market this time, it adopted an additional issuance method and issued 120 million new shares. Because the number of subscriptions reached 6 times the size of the additional issuance, it triggered the predetermined over-allotment option and issued an additional 18 million shares. , a total of 138 million new shares were issued, the issue price was US$27.5, and the financing scale was US$3.795 billion.
Simon returned to Los Angeles last Friday after finishing his work in the television department, and came to the East Coast again on Thursday this week to build momentum for Nokia's listing on the Nasdaq market.
This listing is not much different from the corporate IPO process. The difference is that the issue price of this batch of new shares is set according to the recent trading price of the London stock market, and the stocks in the two places are interchangeable, so it does not give investors too many surprises. possible.
However, as a Westeros concept stock that has returned from overseas and listed on the Nasdaq market, the market still gave quite optimistic predictions before this listing. It is generally estimated that Nokia's increase on the first day of listing in North America can reach about 5%. .
Facts have proved that this data still seriously underestimates the strong appeal of Westeros concept stocks to the market.
Moreover, the capital gains tax reform bill that was just passed this week has really stimulated the activity of the capital market to a large extent.
At around 10 o'clock that morning, Nokia's stock officially began trading, and the opening price shot directly above $29, easily exceeding the 5% first-day increase expectations of many industry analysts.
The opening was positive, which in turn attracted more capital to buy the stock.
When the time came to four o'clock in the afternoon, the Nasdaq stock market closed. Nokia's stock price rose by 11.8% in a single day, with a closing market value of US$30.75. Based on Nokia's total share capital of 1.307 billion shares after the issuance, the total market value of this mobile communications equipment giant has reached 40.1 billion US dollars.
In mature capital markets like Europe and the United States, and because they are interchangeable, there will not be much difference in the stock prices of companies listed in the two places.
Due to the time difference, the London stock market has closed this week and will not open again until next week. The closing market value is approximately 24.6 billion pounds, equivalent to 37.7 billion U.S. dollars, based on the total equity after the additional issuance. However, as long as there is no black swan-level super surprise, Nokia's stock price on the London Stock Exchange will inevitably rise sharply after the opening of trading next Monday, and will eventually be basically consistent with North America after exchange rate conversion.
With the completion of the additional issuance, Westeros' shareholding in Nokia has been reduced to 67.2%.
Calculated based on the closing price on the first day of trading on Nasdaq, Nokia alone contributed US$26.9 billion in wealth to Simon.
Some media people on the Internet platform who follow Simon's personal wealth in real time have re-adjusted Simon's personal net worth based on Nokia's market performance on the first day. Among them, the number given by the editor-in-chief of Fortune magazine has been widely reproduced on Facebook and other platforms.
$620 billion!
This is another new high number given by authoritative financial figures since the first media statistics at the beginning of the year that Simon's personal net worth exceeds 500 billion US dollars, and it is calculated completely with reference to the current stock prices of listed companies in the Westeros system.
Among them, Cisco, whose market value exceeded the US$150 billion mark in January at the beginning of the year, had reached US$192.6 billion as of the close of trading on May 26. The overall increase in more than four months was close to 30%, and it was close to becoming the first 2,000-year-old company in the US stock market. A company with a market capitalization of US$100 million is only one step away.
In addition to Cisco, the shares of other core companies in the Westeros system have also continued to hit new highs.
The editor-in-chief of Fortune magazine still values Yigrit at a very conservative US$100 billion, which is about to go public.
Even so, cumulatively, Simon Westeros's current net worth has reached 620 billion U.S. dollars. Not to mention the 400 richest people in the United States, even the global wealth list, most of the other rich people on the list are not even as rich as Simon. It’s less than a fraction of a huge fortune of $620 billion.
numbness.
It can only be complete numbness.
Whether it is US$500 billion or US$620 billion, they are out of the scope of the thinking of most Americans who happen to not be very good at mathematics.
The complaint of a popular blogger on Facebook is probably the actual feeling of many viewers who are paying attention to this matter: "Let Simon Westeros float in the sky like God, and we can live our own lives."
Others use online platforms to fan the flames.
We should have a revolution against Simon Westeros, he doesn't deserve so much.
Barabara.
Then, some users who spoke fiercely were banned for 'spreading hate speech'.
And it’s a comprehensive ban.
Realizing that a huge user base is the foundation for its own development, Yigrit has become more and more strict in protecting user accounts in recent years. Simon often pays close attention to this matter personally. The security personnel hired by Yigrit's network security department The team of experts is even stronger than the cybersecurity teams of most sensitive government departments.
At the same time, with the continuous expansion of Yigret's business territory, the value of Yigret's account is also becoming higher and higher, because a commonly used account often opens up email, payment tools, instant messaging, social networking sites, and the Internet. A series of services such as shopping malls, and many off-site authorized logins. Therefore, many users simply cannot bear the consequences of their accounts being banned.
The news spread, and the arguments that tried to defeat Simon Westeros were defeated by him first.
Neither the capital gains tax reform nor Nokia's listing in North America have affected the pace of the North American summer season.
After three new films were released last week, the North American film market began to experience a small upsurge.
Box office week from May 19th to May 25th.
The action blockbuster "Die Hard 3" starring Bruce Willis produced by Fox Pictures grossed US$29.88 million in the first seven days of its opening week, easily topping the box office for that week.
However, compared with a production budget of US$90 million and a publicity investment of US$40 million, this result is far from Fox's expectations.
That's more than $10 million less.
The industry has also generally predicted that the first-week box office performance of "Die Hard 3" should reach between 40 million and 50 million US dollars to be considered qualified. Such box office results may be able to break the record in the 1980s. When the North American film market enters its first week In the era of saturated full-scale releases, where the limit has exceeded 100 million, for a super blockbuster with the production volume of "Die Hard 3", it cannot reach 40 million US dollars in the first week, and it is not even qualified.
Considering that "Jurassic Park 2" is about to be released on June 2, and "Die Hard 3" took in US$29.88 million in its first week, it is expected that the total box office in North America may only be about US$70 million, and the most important local box office can only be recovered. With a fraction of the US$130 million investment, the overseas prospects are even more unpredictable. You must know that the "Jurassic Park" series is stronger overseas than in North America.
It’s not just the North American film market that’s limited in size, it’s the same globally.
Therefore, it is inevitable that one will wax and wane and the other will wax and wane.
DreamWorks Pictures' "Die Hard 3" was second only to "Die Hard 3", earning US$25.71 million in its first week. Although it was slightly lower than "Die Hard 3", considering the family-friendly nature of the film, the local The box office should also be around $70 million. Fortunately, the production cost of "Elf" was only US$50 million, and the local box office revenue was also US$70 million. DreamWorks and Paramount are very likely to recover the cost and achieve profitability through global distribution.
However, Spielberg is definitely not satisfied with the box office results of "Elf" due to the gap between the two parties in terms of schedule allocation.
Last week's other new film "Paris", a romantic film directed and starred by Billy Crystal, only had a box office of US$6.23 million in its first week. It was expected to be tepid, and its box office performance was not as good as that of its first release. 7 weeks of "Toy Fighter 3". Affected by several new films, the box office of "Tokyo 3" dropped by 35% in the seventh week, taking in another US$7.19 million, bringing the cumulative box office to US$161.72 million.
160 million in seven weeks. Considering that "Jurassic Park 3" will soon arrive, the local box office of "Toy Fighter 3" is likely to stop at between 170 million and 180 million. Unfortunately, it cannot break through the previously predicted local box office of 2. One hundred million U.S. dollars.
Of course, with a production cost of US$40 million, it generated more than US$170 million in box office in North America alone. "Tokyo 3" is still one of the most successful movies in 1995.
In addition, "The Man from Earth", which Simon wrote himself, continued to earn US$2.25 million on 431 screens in North America in the past week, with a cumulative box office of US$231.56 million. It is expected to still have a box office of about US$5 million after continuing to reduce the number of screens. Space, also failed to reach the original goal of $250 million.
Overall, the success of "The Man from Earth" and "The Man From Earth 3" exceeded Daenerys Entertainment's expectations. However, it was precisely because the two films were so successful that their market capacity was relatively limited in the first half of the year. Internal competition formed during the schedule, causing each box office to shrink compared to expectations.
In the past week, this was basically the same situation between "Die Hard 3" and "Elf".
On May 26, a new box office week started on the day Nokia was listed on Nasdaq. There are mainly two new films opening in North American theaters. Warner Bros. produced "The Gallery" directed and starred by Clint Eastwood. "Bridge of Wetness," and a Sony science fiction film "Special Agent" starring Keanu Reeves.
Neither film is considered a blockbuster, and, a week before "Jurassic Park 2," it was clear that neither was taken seriously by the studio.
However, for Simon, "The Bridge of Lost Dreams" is the most famous.
As an early Hollywood romance film that entered China, this film with a very poetic translation is highly talked about both for its plot and its controversial values.
"Spy" starring Keanu Reeves tells a science fiction story that takes place in the future, using the imagination of a modified cyborg to remember and transmit data. It is somewhat similar to Keanu's later "The Matrix". It's just that "Special Agent" itself has no highlights. The production cost of the film was only 26 million US dollars, and it was used as cannon fodder by Sony before "Jurassic Park 2". The result is probably not the same as last week's Billy Crystal's "Paris". There will be too much difference.
Speaking of which, after expelling Peter Cooper and Jon Peters to take full independent control of Columbia Pictures, Sony has launched a large number of films in the past two years, and it can be said that it has suffered repeated defeats.
With each failure, rumors circulated that Sony was planning to withdraw from Hollywood.
It's a pity that it hasn't come true yet.
As a new box office week begins, "Jurassic Park 2" is getting closer.
Like previous super bombshells, this time, Daenerys Entertainment has also prepared a grand premiere for "Jurassic Park 2", scheduled for May 31, two days before the film is released.