[Is Forex trading illegal?]

Hi, I would like to know more about legality of Forex trading.

[Should I buy AMC stock?]

Hi James, thanks for asking the question.

Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) advanced 5% on Wednesday, in spite of releasing lower-than-expected earnings report for Q1 2020. 

The movie theatre chain had a horrid quarter due to COVID-19, halting its operations almost completely through the end of Q1. 

The quarterly earnings report showed a 22% plunge in revenue, compared to the same period last year, with theatre attendance dropping as high as 24%. The company reported a net loss of $2.2billion, while the net loss on a non-GAAP basis was almost $232 million, compared to the $102 million in the first quarter last year. 

None of these numbers were even close to meeting analysts’ expectations. 

Vice President and Senior Analyst at Barrington Research Associates, Jim Goss, said “significant uncertainty remains for the company” because of the high level of leverage in its corporate model. He said that the company had issues even before the coronavirus pandemic, such as insufficient free cash flow to pay off the $5 billion debt.  Goss didn’t mark AMC stock as “buy” because he thinks there are better investment options right now.

Chief Executive Officer of AMC, Adam Aron, said the company plans to bring theatres back to service in the near future. 

"Our current plan is to have almost all of our theatres globally operating in July, which is in time for and assumes that the industry stays on schedule for Warner Bros.' release of Christopher Nolan's Tenet, currently scheduled for July 17, followed by Disney's release of Mulan, currently scheduled for July 24," he said. 
 

[USD/JPY assessment]

Hi Fernando, thanks for the question. 

Your question was obviously posted earlier, but I believe now is a good time to discuss USD/JPY again. Today, the U.S. equity market dropped sharply lower in the risk-off environment. It seems that the number of coronavirus cases increased in some U.S. states that are reopening up from lockdowns, as well as European countries.

Of course, investors tend to focus on safe-haven assets in times of global uncertainties. For this reason, the Japanese Yen is a popular destination, as well as gold. 

In general, when the stock market rises it translates into a risk-on environment, while on the other hand, a drop in the stock market equals a risk-off environment. That's because investors want to avoid risk and are averse to it.

“The sense is maybe the market got ahead of itself, which makes sense given the fact that we’ve come so far so fast. The reality is this thing’s going to linger longer than probably the market had through of,” said Dan Deming, managing director at KKM Financial.

USD/JPY is on its way to close 0.25% lower and increase weekly losses to 2.5%. The pair struggled to break above the strong resistance on the weekly chart, located near $110, and in the context of the 100-WMA and 200-WMA. 

As a result, USD/JPY dropped 300 pips on general dollar weakness, and the increasing concerns of the second wave of COVID-19. The price action has now moved below the resistance/support on the daily chart as well, around the $108.50.

 

[Which are the best cryptocurrencies for long-term investment?]

Hey Komu, thanks for asking the question.

On top of the list for best long-term investment cryptocurrencies is Bitcoin (BTC), as expected. According to recent news, Bitcoin reached record highs in trading volume in Venezuela. Additionally, one of the most common stock market indexes, NASDAQ, plans to involve Bitcoin in its trading services. Bitcoin is hovering around $9,300 these days and market experts anticipated the surge after the last BTC halving event in May.

Another great long-term investment option is Ethereum (ETH). It is the second-largest digital currency which keeps showing promise. Ethereum is a quite popular choice among businesses because of its ability to integrate smart contract protocol into the blockchain. For instance, Tether and Augur both operate on Ethereum blockchain.

Stellar (XLM) is also a promising cryptocurrency. Stellar was once a part of Ripple before it got forked. This Ripple-powered crypto utilizes an open-source, decentralised coin that promotes low-fees international currency transactions.

EOS is another coin, similar to Ethereum as it also provides developers with the platform which can be used to create decentralised apps and supports smart contracts. Smart contracts keep growing which is a great thing for EOS. This cryptocurrency can compete with Ethereum in terms of scalability. EOS also received great support in terms of funding given that it secured around $4 billion through its ICO.

Last but not least is the Binance Coin (BNB). It is the official coin of the Binance crypto exchange. BNB offers investors big transaction fees discounts and other benefits for increasing the trading volume.

Hope I’ve managed to help!
 

[Ripple]

Hi Predrag, thanks for coming here.

Bloomberg broke the news that Western Union is looking to acquire MoneyGram, which may have an impact on Ripple, given that it owns a 9.95% stake in MoneyGram. If completed, this deal is likely to be supportive of the Ripple price. 

The two-year strategic business deal between Ripple and MoneyGram was signed in June 2019. Under the terms of this agreement, Ripple will pay in total $50 million to MoneyGram in installments in exchange for a 9.95% stake. Judging by some comments made by MoneyGram’s CEO, Ripple isn’t really utilizing the partnership. 

“I would say it was a little bit of a relatively quiet quarter, in the sense of really pushing anything particularly new into the market or expanding the service. We continue to flex with them as they continue to expand the service and move some things around, and really figure out what they want, the product to look and feel like, and how they want to take that to various markets. So I think it’ll change over time. I think the results of what we’re doing will vary by quarter and by month,” said MoneyGram’s CEO Holmes. 

Hence, let’s pay attention to see what happens to this deal. I believe that there’s a room for the upside move in Ripple, especially if it turns out that Ripple made a profit out of the investment in MoneyGram.

 

 

[Uber]

 

 

[Uber]

Hi Michael, thanks for coming here. 

Uber has recently provided an update that the ride-hailing sector has started to recover as the number of bookings has been increasing. Bookings are now down about 70% compared to a year earlier, which is better than a drop of 80% registered in April.

"Our early hypothesis was that the use case of people going back to work will be the leading use case, and we saw some signal there. But actually, the return is pretty broad. Party hours in a lot of these markets. People want to get out again safely, where they want to get out again, they want to socialize again and kind of get as much as they can their prior lives back," said Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi.

The recovery has been led by Hong Kong, where the ride-hailing business has already recovered 80% compared to pre-corona levels. 

As we expect the ride-hailing sector to continue to recover in the coming weeks as more and more countries are lifting lockdown measures, we also expect Uber stock to continue pushing higher. 

As noted in one of the previous answers, Uber stock is up 150% from the lows and now only 10% from the pre-corona highs around the $42 mark. I expect the buyers to eventually take out the 2020 high and set fresh highs above the $42 handle.