Box Office Holdover Premium
In plain terms
Movies that hold over from week 1 to week 2 (60%+ retention vs typical 40%) signal positive word-of-mouth — long the distributor.
How it works
Per-release W2/W1 weekend-gross retention ratio is a clean word-of-mouth test. Typical drop-off is ~55-65% (R ≈ 0.40); R > 0.6 signals positive WOM that propagates over the next 2-4 weeks. Distinct from #245 long-tail drift which uses absolute distributor cohort baseline.
Data dependencies
- Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
- Box office daily
A data feed this strategy reads, refreshed on its normal schedule.
- Box office distributor ticker map
A data feed this strategy reads, refreshed on its normal schedule.
Expected edge
- Reported return
- 50-200 bps
- Tested over
- T+1 to T+20d
50-200 bps over 10-20d.
Example tickers where this is likely to fire
Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.
Related families
When a studio's movie opens way above or way below its recent average, the studio's stock drifts in that direction for about two weeks. We scrape The-Numbers daily box-office, compute the per-distributor surprise z-score, and trade the +/-1.5 SD threshold on Monday open.
When a movie has unusually strong "legs" in its second weekend (holding 70%+ of opening), the studio's stock drifts up over the next 2-4 weeks as analysts revise total-revenue estimates higher.
When a studio dominates a holiday tentpole weekend (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, July 4), its stock drifts up over the next 10 trading days as analysts price in the captured share of the year's marquee theatrical revenue.
When a distributor's slate is heavily one-genre AND that genre is in a market-wide uptrend, the distributor outperforms.
Explore Box Office Holdover Premium on alphactor.ai
See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.