March To Minas Morgul + Stock Market Commentary

---

Lord of the Rings Online

---

Minas Morgul went to the LotRO store a few weeks ago, and that was enough to return to LotRO. My last attempts to play LotRO ran afoul of patching failures (unable to install the MM patch), and previous to that, no idea how to get the epic questline when the Vales of Anduin released. I thought it was bugged.

Let’s just say the returning player experience caused me to uninstall months ago, and this time it was still pretty bad. There was no quest popup or lead-in when I bought the Minas Morgul ex-pack, for example. I was a bit bewildered.

The good news is that Standing Stone is making “all Lotro quests, instances, and skirmishes, including those in expansion packs, open to everyone through April 30.”(Source.)

So if you want to jump back in without a subscription, now is the time. So far I’m having a fair bit of fun in this era of social isolation, and I feel like I’ll be able to stick with it to the new level cap of 130.

The spring festival also started today in Middle Earth. Per the announcement, we will also have some special events to cheer people up during these difficult times. Honestly the Landroval server is crammed with people right now, for whatever reason. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen such a player population in LotRO.

---

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

---

This is on 60% off sale this weekend on Steam. I’m going to highly recommend this game as a fantastic Baldur’s Gate style experience. I’ve been watching a Twitch streamer play it (HazVsRPG).

Personally, I find Keep and lands management to be a bit tedious, and I’m looking for more social online experiences that make me feel less lonely and depressed. So I might buy this, but I’m not sure I’ll play it over LotRO right now.

---

U.S. Stock Market

---

I was reading an article today about the stock market during the 1918 Spanish Flu. The market then sold down 30+% very early in that time, the same as now. That was also months before the worst of the flu hit the world.

The market never went below that point afterwards. These are very different times, in all kinds of ways. Nonetheless, some people are speculating this could be the bottom, or very near it.

I’ve legged into Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), Akamai (AKAM), Verizon (VZ), and Tencent (TCEHY) in the past week. This is all for the stay-at-home economy. I was on top of this before people started writing about and buying into these stocks, as well. So I’m still doing quite fine.

Akamai was up 10% yesterday on reports of various internet outages (Akamai serves to mitigate overloads with their server networks.) It’s down today though, and I haven’t researched why.

I am also legging into Silver (SLV). A soaring dollar has crushed silver and gold, among other things. During 2008, silver dropped as low as $8.50/OZ. So I’m prepared to double down at that point and triple down if even lower.

I was previously considering buying a PC manufacturer for the work-at-home economy. Articles this week have mentioned laptops disappearing from shelves in stores. It’s hard to buy a pure PC manufacturer, although Lenovo (Chinese) on the pink sheets is a possibility.

Today Logitech (LOGI) was soaring 10% on articles about the need for its products for working at home, as well as exposure to gaming. That’s a great pick. I wish I’d thought of it before the 10% up. Now it’s a little late for my taste.

Instead I pushed a bit into Tencent today. I don’t like buying a giant diversified company in general (i.e. Sony), but it’s a good global play on video game demand. Also, China has contained its virus for now. Who knows what could happen at Blizzard HQ in California, for example, possibly setting fire to your ATVI.

Let me be clear that all of my positions now are half-positions. Small stuff, so I can buy more if the markets do indeed go another 10%-20%.

---

Personal

---

My cough continues to be severe. I got tested for Covid-19, but my doctor didn’t do the test properly I think. In any case, the lab could not process it. So I still don’t know.

I do have some issues breathing at times. That could just be mucus buildup, or a panic attack since I’m having real issues with stress.

Anyway, if I stop posting you’ll know what happened to the kitty. Creative work on the game is on hold, for the most part, until I feel better both physically and emotionally.

The Cursed Tombs dungeon has been patched up a fair bit, however, and is still open for business here.

Stay safe, stay at home. I see pictures on Tumblr of everyone in 1918 wearing masks. Why are we still not wearing masks??? China, Hong Kong, and South Korea have all contained their virus. They are also all wearing masks. HMMMM.

Well, I’m still trying to get some masks delivered from Amazon. My first order still hasn’t shown up after 3+ weeks. Crossing my fingers on the second attempt. I bought a water filter. I bought a lot of food. I bought a very large bag of cough drops.

LotRO U23, Gaming Stocks, Dev Project, Etc.

LotRO Update 23:

Surely the best, most ambitious quest pack update in LotRO’s history. Incredible. What are they feeding to these devs. Lots of system issues and bugs still, though. And the endgame is a pretty steep grind, after you figure out all of the currencies and dailies, and how they work.

LotRO Legendary Server:

A new server is opening Nov. 8th, per the most recent tweet. Everyone starts at level one. The LotRO devs are making things happen. There are pros and cons, which have been thoroughly discussed. I’m concerned about my kinship bleeding to the new server.

I’ll roll up a new toon and claim a character name. Whether I play the character is another story. I have better things to do than play LotRO in all of my spare time.

Hearthstone:

I casually ranked to 11 this month with Even Lock and Odd Rogue, and a bit of Cubelock. I played some Asmo Priest in casual. My main goal is just to keep up with quests and stay F2P. The announcement of the next expansion should be this Friday afternoon at Blizzcon.

I’ll be watching the big tournament at Blizzcon also for sure.

The Mid-Term Election:

If you’re a Trump supporter, and you’re voting Republican in this midterm election in the U.S., you are:

A supporter of hate and less rights for LGBT.

A supporter of persecution and less rights for trans people specifically, and now possibly legislating away their legal identity in society.

A supporter of taking away women’s rights to choose.

A supporter of reducing public lands, which belong to all Americans, and opening them to exploitation by corporations.

A supporter of reducing controls and oversight of pollution and pesticides.

A supporter of sexism, pussy grabbing, and white supremacy.

A supporter of racism, naming calling, and defamation of Hispanics.

A supporter of the U.S. president telling over 5000 false or misleading claims in his first 2 years of office.

A supporter of the U.S. president turning this week’s domestic terrorism pipe bomb incident into a plea for Republicans to get out and vote.

A supporter of huge tax cuts for the super rich, which have caused the U.S. deficit and debt to soar.

A supporter of the China tariffs, which is a tax on all people, which is then used to cut taxes for the super rich.

A supporter of rampant corruption and Russian attempts to undermine democracy and the free world.

A supporter of all of these now-indicted criminals that are/were Trump’s friends, lawyers, and co-workers.

A supporter of Trump repeatedly calling the free press “the enemy of the people,” leading to violent attacks and many death threats towards journalists, who are trying to fight all of this. (And thereby they are the enemy.)

A supporter of Trump and company leading chants to put his political opponents in prison.

A supporter of a complete circus of fear politics. The hispanic migrants, who are 1000 miles away, are going to invade! This is a national emergency! Well, thousands of migrants show up at the border every year. It’s actually a normal situation being turned into fear politics.

It’s all fun and games until the murders begin, and an American journalist for WaPo (Trump’s nemesis) was murdered last week.

This could be a much longer list. The point is, if you support Trump or vote Republican, you are one of his complete idiots and under-educated sheep who embraces lies and corruption in exchange for the promise of holding power.

Just GTFO out of my blog. Get lost. Get educated. This situation is not a joke.

General Stocks:

U.S. stock market crashed last week. This is the inevitable result of Trump being president. I was selling earlier this year, down to 28% invested, 72% cash. In the past week, on this crash, I went up to about 50/50. If market tanks again this week, I’ll be shaken out back down to 33%.

I added Microsoft before they announced great results, sending the stock up 5% overnight. I added a small speculative position in Blizzard, because it’s so oversold, and I don’t want to miss it. It seems like Blizzcon should give Blizzard a bounce, but in past years it really hasn’t? So it’s a straight-up gamble.

I added a bit more to the SKYY (cloud) ETF. I added some J.P.Morgan Chase and some Albemarle for a rounded, more defensive portfolio.

Video Game Stocks:

I had to sell the NVidia that I bought before my last post.

Video game companies have been hit very hard. Blizzard dropped 7% in one day after suggesting sales for COD 4 weren’t actually that great. Sony has also pulled back very hard. This might be due to the Chinese war on video games? Or is it just pulling back with the broad Japanese market, which would make it a buy?

AMD has crashed, mainly due to disappointing earnings. NVidia crashed in sympathy. AMD has a very strong incorporation in the next gen consoles for both Microsoft and Sony. That’s a boost to AMD that will come as we approach 2020.

If AMD is left for dead in the coming months, I might be a speculative buyer. It’s hard to buy video game companies until the China trade war and also war on video games are less of an issue, however.

Personal Game Project:

I’ve finally finished and playtested my first “dating” module, where you can go on an elfy eco-date with your friend Jeanie. I still need to translate it into Spanish.

While on your quest with Jeanie, a side quest is to learn about at least 6 plant species (one of which is the top graphic.) Jeanie is into botany, so your interest in plants will make her happy. An interest in shrooms might make her happy too.

Yes, I know fungi are actually not plants. I have a biology degree.

I’m working now on revamping and rewriting that module into another dating module with Connor. This will be an interesting journey into bisexuality. I’ll need to dig deep into my personal history.

The romance is just kissing and implication, similar to Baldur’s Gate. I have no plans for nudity, at least not of romanceable students. Elven professors don’t mix with the students, at least officially.

A goblin professor of the dark arts might mix, but she hasn’t entered the story yet.

For now, I’ve incorporated functionality for retro black-screen with text in the middle, game-mastering the passage of romantic time, like in Baldur’s Gate.

You have to do a lot of things right to even get a kiss on the first date though. The next date with both characters will probably be drinking in a tavern.

Miscellaneous:

My Dinner With Herve. This is a touching new movie out on HBO. I enjoyed it. Peter Dinklage. What else do you need.

I’m sad that Orange Is The New Black is being canceled by Netflix. Maybe they canceled it because Jenji Kohan went super gay in Season 7, and pissed off the execs? Let’s hope so!

Corona. I started drinking beer this week to help with my stress. This blog post has been brought to you by Corona Extra, the beer of bilingual blogging champions. I’ll see you soon on the LotRO Legendary server, I hope.

Oh, and screw Justin Olivetti for removing the KKBB link on his blog. Likewise. Game over for Olivetti. Grade A is now a grade Z. Byeee.

Mirkwood, Gaming Stocks, And Development Notes

LotRO’s recent Mirkwood update is actually really good. I’ve played through it completely with my main, and I’m working on an alt.

It’s clear the small LotRO team is working very hard, and they deserve some accolades for some of the highest quality content LotRO has seen in a long time.

The player base in general seems a little detached and apathetic, however. I’m concerned that the difficulty level of Mordor, and again of Mirkwood, may have expelled a significant number of players.

LotRO’s most recent update completely revamped the character selection panel, with overall improved results. Today I uploaded an update to my custom interface, which repairs some of the damage caused by the interface changes.

---

Gaming Stocks

---

The past month and the week before last saw record inflows into ETFs according to CNBC. I take these flows to be average people, including mom and pop, chasing this bounce. This is BEARISH, not bullish. it’s also stupid at this time of record uncertainty, risk, and rising interest rates.

These investors were face planted this week when the market crashed again due to various factors, especially Trump’s trade war with China.

Friday’s drop took the S&P index exactly to the critical level it needs to hold relative to the previous low several weeks ago.

The overall sentiment on Wall Street is that it won’t hold, which is my sentiment also. This is why I’ve been taking profits for the last month.

In my last post I bought Google and sold Albemarle. I took quick profits in Google after that. I more recently sold Nvidia (NVDA) and Tencent (TCEHY) both for 120% gains.

I’m currently as little exposed to the market as I’ve been in a very long time. I actually tried to go short the market at the recent top, but got shook out, missing a huge gain to date in inverse 2x short S&P (SDS).

In that case I broke one of my rules, which is to wait until the very end of a day before allowing myself to get shaken out on a high conviction trade.

I was distracted by real life and couldn’t deal with having that much money on the table, basically. I really need to get past that and make 2x or 3x bets.

If you’re currently in the market, then I think it’s too late to sell anything. I also think it’s too early to risk buying, but we’ll just see. Let’s break down individual equities.

NVidia (NVDA) should be watched for a buying opportunity on this pullback, but it has all sorts of issues and headwinds:

1. Amazon and Google said they will start making their own chips (i.e. so they aren’t held hostage, are more secure due to proprietary, and don’t have to pay NVidia’s 50% margins.)

2. Self-driving cars are higher risk since the fatality last week in Phoenix. Uber suspended its testing, and Uber uses NVidia chips.

3. AMD strongly asserts it will take market share this year, presumably from NVidia.

4. China says it plans to make more of its own chips, presumably to be less dependent on the U.S., which actually tends to block Chinese chips and devices for security reasons.

Tencent said this week that their mobile games sales have weakened in China. Gamers are migrating to more sophisticated, less dumb games, like the PC games offered by Netease (NTES). This is a risk across the industry.

This is good news though for people like me who hate dumbed down games. I’ve been predicting a resurgence of the PC for years due to this exact effect. I also predicted a difficult year for game developers this year, because of increased competition.

Jim Cramer was championing Activision Blizzard (ATVI) on his show last week. He said ATVI is making a new modern Disney. That’s a bold claim.

Meanwhile, Blizzard’s Hearthstone is offering ever-increasing free stuff, including a much more generous 70 packs for the expansion purchase, instead of 60.

This seems to say they need to sweeten the pot to keep their customers, who are pressuring them publicly about the expensiveness of Hearthstone.

---

Current Picks

---

Currently my only gaming stock holding is a moderate position in the GAMR ETF. NVidia and Tencent moved from the portfolio to the watch list. Other stocks on my watch list are Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Albemarle (ALB), Equinix(EQIX), Labcorp (LH), and Visa (V).

TSM is pressured by a very strong drawdown in the chip industry right now, but it’s a huge independent chip fabricator, so it might benefit from China vs. U.S. chip wars, especially as a subcontractor if China pushes faster to become independent of the U.S. chip makers.

Visa has strong relative strength and, while TSM is hurt right now by being a part of chip ETFs, Visa is a big part of financial ETFs, which are expected to benefit from rising interest rates.

Equinix (EQIX) is my white whale. For years I’ve missed every opportunity at this stock. At some point, the real estate ETFs (REITs), will stop being pressured by rising interest rates, which, as I understand it, hurt these companies due to the high debt these run.

It would be very profitable to have the savvy to get back into the REITs at the right time during this rising interest rate cycle.

I don’t have the experience to know when that is, but I really like investing in internet operation infrastructure, which is mostly dependent on internet bandwidth usage, and less related to sales of chips and software. Maybe I could research this in the charts going back several years to prior cycles.

---

Personal Project

---

Today and yesterday I was watching Harry Potter movies over and over on HBO Now, trying to understand why some of them (i.e. Prisoner of Azkaban) are better than others (i.e. Chamber of Secrets.)

I think it’s better characters, conflict, and lots of amazing magical things happening, but I should put my observations and writer insights into another blog topic.

I’ve also been working hard on the story and art for my game, as usual. The above image for this post is from the “evil” tavern, where the general bad guys hang out.

You know – the evil wizards, the demons, etc. I won’t say pirates because in my game the pirates are counted as good guys. They are free humans, rebels against the dark Lord whose laws say all humans must be registered slaves.

I’m also still reading about fairy magic and lore. Supposedly the power of 5 (the pentagram) is more normally used and powerful for fairies than the power of 3. Good to know, because I was going with 3.

The Harry Potter movies notably don’t have a lot of pentagrams or other provocative imagery hanging around. Harry does form a trinity with Ron and Hermione, however.

And a final thanks to the one person last month who bought a copy of one of my books. Thanks for the cheeseburger, amigo…

North Mirkwood, Wow Multiclassing, Hearthstone, Etc.

Massively reported this week on the Northern Mirkwood update 22 for LotRO. I’m patching LotRO now. I’m morbidly curious to see if I’m kicked out of my LotRO kinship for inactivity, for like the 10th time.

When I finished the main story of Mordor (for all I know, there could be more of it now, honestly), I had no interest in grinding gear whatsoever. Just too much grinding, and confusing.

The sight of Mirkwood has me vaguely interested, since I’ve been completely unable to find an MMO replacement. My one month back in WoW didn’t persuade me to spend the next decade of my life grinding that game.

Massively wrote a speculative piece on WoW multi-classing this week. My main problem with WoW has always been the classes just never sticking with me. Are the classes in WoW just “dumbed down”? Maybe that’s why I’ve spent more time playing Rift than WoW.

Rift lost me on too many loot box and cash shop shenanigans, among other things. Hearthstone is pushing more promotional roulette wheel stuff, but effort you make in Hearthstone is never completely lost.

You can always dust your cards down the road (aka gear), use them in wild, etc. Maybe the Mech tribe will make a comeback, and unused cards will suddenly be playable, etc. Everyone wishes there were more achievements and things to do in Hearthstone though.

Politics and Market Commentary

The bounce. Is it a real ‘V’, or are we going down again? The news that Mueller is charging Russians for election meddling, but not the Trump campaign (yet), seems to take some steam off of the overhead of political risks in the short term. Yeah.

The initial big surge was the dip buyers, but after many, many months of no dips, that was expected. Some analysts insist the unwinding of volatility trades, among other things, will take weeks, not ten days, but things are looking pretty stable.

I went back big into GOOGL at the first of the week, because I liked the market action. I’m up 3%. The daily action looks fairly orderly to me, with money being put to work, not so much FOMO.

I am up 12% on RHT (RedHat) since last week, which is crazy. I mentioned LH (Labcorp) last week, and that has been insane too. I wish now that I had pushed. I would buy LH on another dip if we have one.

I sold ALB (Albemarle) already yesterday (Friday) at the peak of the market, within minutes of the announcement that Rosenstein was going to make a prepared statement. That was good timing.

I took 6% in ALB, and the reason I sold is that the dollar is holding support and bouncing, instead of breaking still lower. Kevin O’Leary stated he thinks the dollar has found a bottom, and he is acting accordingly. So, I decided maybe it’s a good idea to protect my profits.

Also, the breadth on this bounce is really not there. If the breadth increases on Mom and Pop Monday (Tuesday, this week due to holiday), then we could have a FOMO situation.

If FOMO hits this coming week, we could see panic buying into a double top pattern, and then who knows. Another big drop could cause lasting damage to morale of dip buyers. If breadth declines, then caveat emptor even more.

Personal

Ok, LotRO is done patching. Time to look up my password, log in, and see what happens. I see a lot of people in Mordor. I see the normal amount of people in both kins (on both accounts.) I see bands playing in Bree (on Landroval.)

So pretty much situation normal. I have no idea what to do, though. Maybe just wait for Mirkwood. I’m not grinding Mordor gear. Today I have a bunch of art to do for my game project, anyway.

A drawing of a fairy. A gnome merchant, maybe with a burro. Or maybe a flying transport carpet? My world is pretty low/medium magic though.

Maybe it shouldn’t be low magic? Maybe that’s just lazy and unimaginative?

I really improved my interface last week, and I put up a new splash screen for module three on Deviant Art.

LotRO Mordor Beta, Hearthstone Frozen Throne, Gaming Stock Update, Tunnels And Trolls

---

Mordor Open Beta

---

This weekend the character model updates arrived on the LotRO beta server, and honestly they look very good. The newly aligned Standing Stone developers clearly have a mind for pushing improvements for LotRO.

Last weekend I played through the High Elf introduction on LotRO’s Mordor beta server, which involves a flashback to the Last Alliance at the end of the second age in Middle Earth.

In looks and animation, High Elf is sort of a cross between Elf and man. I found the intro sequences to be epic and entertaining, just long enough to serve the purpose, but not long enough to be boring.

Hardcore lore-monkeys and other serious-business types in the LotRO forum lambasted the High Elf production quality, however.

Some criticism, like the wet dog scraggly hair modeling, might be justified, although they have already improved that in the third beta weekend.

I thought the little story was fine. The elf does Night Elf-style dive-rolls. Most low-budget MMO’s these days don’t even have racial start areas.

---

Hearthstone announces Knights of the Frozen Throne

---

Blizzard announced Knights of the Frozen Throne yesterday. Frozen Throne might bring more deathrattle cards for my priest, which is nice.

Knights is especially exciting for players who like PvE story content in Hearthstone, because this xpack will bring that back after a year hiatus, and the discontinuation of adventures after Karazhan last year.

Also Blizz is running a promotion for the next week for double gold earned from quests. So if you’re on a break from Hearthstone, you should probably check in and knock those down for 100+ gold per quest completion.

---

Gaming Stocks

---

Last week I sold Blizzard (ATVI) at $59.50 near the recent high. Today I bought back into the GAMR ETF, as shown in the image above. After an almost $1000 gain, I was just holding too much Blizzard.

It was easier for taxes to sell it all instead of taking half off the table. Also, I do not trust the U.S. market right now, or the inflated Blizzard stock price, or the profit margins on Blizzard’s impressive eSports productions. If they are going to have a lackluster quarter, it could be this one.

Today Blizzard, EA, and TTWO saw big buying demand on a market bounce. They were well above any other stocks I track. Clearly a lot of people are eager to shove their money into video game companies.

If you’ve been wanting to get into Blizzard, today was a solid bet. Blizzard is bouncing off of the top line of a straight trend channel started last February. The MACD oversold indicator (at bottom of images) is also good.

I would rather see Blizzard break and fall down into that channel before I re-buy, i.e. around $54-55. Or I’d like to see a broad market meltdown or flash crash.

This year has been horrible for retail in general. A lot of stocks have been smashed. Food. Clothes. Now auto parts. Some of this weakness may bleed over into video games, or maybe just real estate, health care, and tech companies are devouring everyone’s lunch money.

For now, I opted for a more global diversity in my video game investment. It’s interesting that the GAMR ETF holdings do not have Blizz, EA, and TTWO in the top 10. I like that. I’m also still holding NVidia, Tencent, and Netease.

NTES was my gaming pick in my last blog post in May. It is currently up 11.47% since I purchased it. According to a chart comparison tool, NTES has outperformed Blizzard slightly during the last two months. I wouldn’t expect that to continue, but it’s nice.

I also sold Silver(SLV) for a small gain at 16.30. It’s now down to 14.73, and I’m looking at it again. The problem is that both it and the dollar are much lower, which is a big problem. It would be better to buy the dollar if it turns (symbol UUP).

Other names on my current radar are Patrick Industries (PATK) for secular need for cheap housing, a trend shaping up and good PE, PEG ratios, Autozone (AZO) for oversold due to panic over O’Reilly’s released numbers, and telecom ETF (VOX), which was picked by an analyst I like (Tom Lee), and it’s a Trump trade.

edit- Today, Monday morning, I bought a bit of JD.com (JD) at 39.90 on heavy volume against a very good stop out level at 38.40. This is a small, low-risk bet for big potential gain after a very strong last earnings report and a period of consolidation.

edit- Also,as of Tuesday the GAMR ETF now has Blizzard at #7, so apparently they are buying the current weakness.

---

Tunnels And Trolls App Still WIP

---

I checked on the T&T app this week, and apparently Metaarcade is still working on it.

They’ve put up a few updates in the last week, however, and the blog post suggests the team is fighting the 90-90 rule:

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

Yes, that sounds about right. I’m in the same situation with my own game project, which is currently looking great. The hardest problems still need to be whipped into shape, however. My next blog post will be about that, with my first module ready for play-testing.