Skip to main content

Earth Day and Oscar goes to....

This week world celebrated Earth Day on Apr 22. Fifteen years after Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary which won 2 Oscars, I am glad that policymakers across large nations (US, China, India and EU) as well as corporates which used to be part of of the problem (Automakers and Energy companies) are paying attention to real dangers of Global Warming and becoming part of the solution. Many leaders committed to significant reductions in emission goals by 2030 to 2050. Even companies like Exxon and GM are taking concrete steps in helping solve the problem. After all they are looking at valuation premiums offered to their "green" counterparts like Tesla and solar companies and realizing that "green is good" (on lines of famous Gordon Gekko dialogue from original Wall Street movie "greed is good"). Hope that these actions and commitments will help make Earth "cool" again!

After two month delay, Oscars would be held today evening at Union Station in Los Angeles. Due to pandemic, many movies got delayed due to closure of theaters. It gave an opportunity for many smaller movies to find alternative distribution channels like streaming networks. Here are my predictions based on seeing some movies as well as reading their reviews.

  1. Best Picture - Nomadland
  2. Best Direcctor - Chloe Zhao (Nomadland). It would be quite fitting to recognize Asian woman given recent events in Atlanta
  3. Actor in leading role - Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom). He should have been awarded Oscar for his role in Black Panther but academy members normally don't vote for big blockbusters. This would be third posthumous award in Academy's history
  4. Actress in leading role - Andra Day (The United States vs Billie Holiday). This is going to be one of most competitive category with worthy nominees like Carey Mulligan, Frances McDormand or even Viola Davis
  5. Actor in Supporting role - Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
  6. Actress in Supporting role - Glenn Close (Hillbelly Elegy) - hope 8th time is charm for her and she can break the curse of not winning even after 7 nominations.
With these winners, Academy voters can send a strong message on "Black Lives Matter", gender equality and all races are equal.

Last week crypto markets collapsed after reaching its peak on exact day of Coinbase IPO. Even Coinbase is down by 20% since it's first day opening. It may have happened due to 1:100 leverage on some of the  non-US based unregulated crypto exchanges and associated forced selling.
Next two weeks are going to be peak of earnings season with trillion $ market cap companies announcing results. As the battle between "value vs growth", "small vs big" and "opening vs WFH" continue, these results would give good indications on how rest of 2021 pans out.

Finally, an appeal to all of you! Covid infections and deaths are wrecking havoc in India. Leaders, policymakers as well as citizens became complacent due to very low infection rates during winter and did not prepare for second wave. This second wave seems to be lot more infectious and deadly and hope that Modi, all CMs as well as citizens get their act together quickly and bring this under control. Please provide all the help you can by volunteering or donating to organizations (like Seva International). 

/Shyam

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2025 = Is it going to be 1997 or 2000?

Happy Holidays... After 5 months of hibernation with no real reason than writing block, I decided to use quiet morning of Christmas day to start writing again. Lot has happened in last 5 months - in particular release of Animal Spirits with Fed starting interest rate reduction cycle and historic victory of President Trump for 2nd term. As the year turns into 2025 and stock markets at all time high, one would wonder, what's next?  To answer this, one needs to look back at 1920s and 1990s to give us some context on where markets may be headed. 1920s saw invention of televisions, radio, wider adoption of cars, vacuums, penicillin and many other which we consider household items now. These inventions created roaring 20s with markets going up by 500% eventually leading to crash of 1929. However during mid-20s, markets keep going up due to excitement of these inventions and end of World War-1 and Spanish Flu Pandemic. 1990s also saw many inventions - the key being launch of Netscape in 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elections and Rotations!

2024 will be known as an important year in terms of elections (97 nations covering half the population) across the major countries in the world. We are only halfway thru the year and already some key nations have gone thru elections and voters have indicated their preference for change (in a way). Let's take a look at few. India - Modi's BJP started with lots of enthusiasm with slogans of "Modi ki Guarantee" and "400 paar" (more than 400) seats (out of 543). Indian voters (which I considered one of the most smartest) gave reality check to Modi and BJP by reducing BJP count to 240 (from 303 in previous parliament) forcing it to form coalition government. I have lot more detailed hypothesis on these results (but not here). Almost everyone (including me) got their predictions wrong and lost some friendly bets. Indians want balance between "Strong, Prosperous, Proud" India with "Inclusive, Employment and Harmony". Modi and BJP are quick learn...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the Oscar goes to...

It's Oscar Sunday and time for predictions for few categories - before I digress into talking about drama in DC or markets.  First of all, I want to recognize the damage LA fires have done to the beloved areas of Los Angeles and impacted families across all spectrums. My heart goes out to them and wish them recovery and rebuilding of their lives... This year's Oscar nominees and post nomination period had been interesting to say the least. Due to this, the field is wide open in almost all categories and that's what makes prediction game so interesting. Just to set expectations, I would consider a win if I get even 50% predictions correct given the dynamics of nominees this year. So here are my predictions - "And the Oscar goes to..." Best Picture - Anora (surprise could be "The Brutalist") Best Director - Sean Baker for "Anora" (Surprise could be Brady Corbet for "The Brutalist") Best Actor - Adrien Brody for "The Brutalist"...
Post a Comment
Read more