I enjoyed the movie, great action, more realistic, closer to Fleming’s original. However, I did not understand why Le Chiffre bought stock in the airplane company (made call to his broker), given that he was going to blow up the prototype and the stock would then plunge…surely he would lose money.
Please help me understand.
Thanks in advance.
He was shorting the stock.
He was, as the other poster said, “shorting” the stock. Effectively he was placing a buy order for the shares based on the specification that they drop a certain amount. By doing so one of the things he could do would be quickly weild a controlling interest in the company for a bargain price, thus gaining control. When he contracted with the operative to use an IED to attack the aircraft he was counting on the negative publicity to drive the price of the shares down, triggering his “Buy short” order and giving him the shares and the control at a bargain basement price.
Then it didn’t go as planned. The stock went up and bad guy was quickly in the whole $150 mil.
He was, as the other poster said, “shorting” the stock. Effectively he was placing a buy order for the shares based on the specification that they drop a certain amount. By doing so one of the things he could do would be quickly weild a controlling interest in the company for a bargain price, thus gaining control. When he contracted with the operative to use an IED to attack the aircraft he was counting on the negative publicity to drive the price of the shares down, triggering his “Buy short” order and giving him the shares and the control at a bargain basement price.
More accurately, shorting the stock is selling stock that you do not own, in order to profit by purchasing it back at a lower price in the future. He wouldn’t gain control of the airline, only put downward pressure on it, if the float of stock was small enough that that trade was a large percentage of the stock, or out of ordinary due to it’s size and ordinary trading patterns. If the plane had blown up, the maximum profit El Chiffre would have made in the movie was the difference between his sale price, and zero x the amount of stock sold.
Thanks dude. There was no way I could have really explained that (since I really don’t understand it). As it is, my understanding of it is obviously so rudimentary it is… well, wrong. My bad.
I saw it last night. Great movie. Definitely a different kind of Bond and a different kind of Bond movie.
Anyone catch the celebrity cameo appearance in the Miami airport scene?
Thanks dude. There was no way I could have really explained that (since I really don’t understand it). As it is, my understanding of it is obviously so rudimentary it is… well, wrong. My bad.
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I saw it last night. Great movie. Definitely a different kind of Bond and a different kind of Bond movie.
Anyone catch the celebrity cameo appearance in the Miami airport scene?
You must be refering to Sir Richard Branson.
Thanks to all for the clarifications. Great film, no fancy gadgets, clothes etc…just the ruthless killer that Fleming designed
Anyone catch the celebrity cameo appearance in the Miami airport scene?
Let’s call it the “miami airport” b/c if you’ve ever been there, you know it looks nothing like the super-modern, uncrowded airport in the movie. In real life, it looks more like a 3rd-world clusterfuck. But Virgin (who got in a few product placement opportunities) does fly from Miami. Also, the science museum was NOT in Miami. It looked more like Gotham. However, the police cars looked like real Miami-Dade police cars.
oh, and what’s been bothering me about the film is that he was seemingly able to bed his bond girl with no problems after being mercilessly tortured like that… i guess he just recovers really fast.