2015 - The biggest year ever for Hollywood

It was officially confirmed that 2015 was the biggest year ever for Hollywood.

North American box-office sales crossed the $11 billion mark, industry researcherRentrak Corp. said Tuesday in a statement. Propelled by the blockbusters“Jurassic World” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” U.S. and Canadian tickets ales surpassed the high of $10.9 billion set in 2013. Revenue is up 7.2percent this year.

Sequels to already popular movies and revivals of older hits, such as “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Furious 7,” were largely responsible for the record. Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures were the main beneficiaries, sharing almost half of the year’s spoils. Universal had the biggest share, with sales of $2.55 billion, according to researcher Box Office Mojo. Rentrak expects $11.1 billion in total sales by year-end.

“You are getting great momentum heading into 2016,” Eric Wold, analyst at B. Riley & Co., said in an interview. While the 2015 totals were slightly below his initial predictions, the fourth quarter is expected to exceed his forecasts.

Revenue from “Star Wars” will feed into 2016, delivering a possible 4 percent boost and alleviating concerns about the year’s film slate, Wold said.

A diverse film mix contributed to the industry’s success, Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s senior media analyst, said in the statement.

With U.S.movies so popular internationally, the record North American take also signals a new high mark for the global box office, which has been rising steadily in recent years mainly due to exponential growth in China.

Oil prices remain under pressure

Oil prices remained under pressure due to the weak demand, although small increases reported on Tuesday.

Persistent global production has contributed to the near-record levels of oil being pumped and a lessening of demand will hurt prices further.

Futures for WTI crude gained 0.19% to $36.88 per barrel. While Brent contracts advanced 0.11% to trade at $36.66.

While the fallout of increased production has resulted in lower prices, demand has so far kept up and even outstripped the supply.

However, that appears to be under threat as JBC Energy reports demand growth in Europe turned negative for the first time in ten months in October.

This represents a loss of 170,000 barrels per day (bpd) year-on-year while the report also highlighted the slowing demand from China as it continues to transition to the 'new normal'.

Some analysts are predicting that output will exceed demand by more than 2 million bpd, and with OPEC refusing to curb production the pressure is mounting.

As many as 64% of rigs in the US have closed this year, according to data from oilfield services company Baker Hughes, but a meaningful decline in output has yet to materialize, with the remaining producers being able to drill more efficiently.

The supply glut is unlikely to be alleviated anytime soon as Iran announced they will increase exports by 500,000 bpd within weeks of Western sanctions being lifted.

Iran has the fourth largest reserves of oil in the world and fears of a return to pre-sanction output of 2.5 million bpd could put further pressure on the fragile petroleum price.

Meanwhile, Monday's Saudi Arabian budget implied that the price war with US shale is taking its toll on the economy in the kingdom, with the government planning to spend 135 billion riyals less in 2016.

The ministry of finance was prompted to give such austere projections based on the persistent and stubbornly low oil prices. This has led them to giving reduced revenue expectations while also cutting spending.

Audi shrinks its spending plans for 2016

Volkswagen's flagship Audi plans to shrink significantly its speding plans for 2016 and plans to postpone the construction of a new wind tunnel, after Volkswagen concern suffered from a scandal over rigged emissions test.

Audi, which made a higher operating profit than the VW group in the first nine months of 2015, said it would invest more than 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) on plants and equipment in 2016.

A company source said the plan foresaw spending of 3.3 billion euros for next year. Under its previous budget drawn up a year ago, Audi announced investments of 17 billion euros over 2015-19, or an annual average of 3.4 billion euros.

"With the current investment program, we obviously want to enhance the brand’s strong position, but at the same time, we aim to achieve additional financial scope by means of further process and cost optimization," Audi finance chief Axel Strotbek said in a statement.

The move comes after VW, Europe's biggest automotive group, cut 1 billion euros from its 2016 investment plan in November, as its emissions cheating scandal expanded to include tens of thousands more U.S. vehicles.

Audi vowed not to save at the expense of future growth but rather to examine every investment decision individually.

"The Board of Management has therefore decided to postpone the construction of a new wind tunnel for one year," it said.

The company did not comment on investment plans beyond 2016.

Merry Christmas!

Dear friends,

Christmas usually brings family and friends together.

Christmas helps us appreciate the love in our lives we can often take for granted.

May the true meaning of the holiday season fill your heart and home with many blessings!

May this holiday season sparkle and shine!

May all of your wishes and dreams come true, and may you feel this happiness all year round.

Wish you a Merry Christmas!

Mixed trading on Wall Street today

Trading on US exchanges today showed mixed results after continuing recovery of oil prices considering that the past three days the US indices recorded gains.

Stocks close at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday and are closed for the Christmas holiday on Friday. Other markets including energy and bonds will also close early, shutting at 1:30 p.m. ET and 2 p.m., ET, respectively.

Treasury yields held little changed, with the 2-year yield at 0.99 percent and the 10-year yield near 2.26 percent.

The U.S. dollar index was about 0.3 percent lower against major world currencies, with the euro near $1.095 and the yen at 120.42 yen against the greenback as of 8:35 a.m., ET.

Oil will be in focus, after a bounce in crude prices helped propel U.S. stocks to closer sharply higher on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones ending up triple digits. Natural gas inventories are due later in the morning. 

U.S. crude prices rose for a fourth straight session on Thursday, headed for a 9 percent weekly gain in the lead-up to Christmas, as the market tightened on the back of falling supplies and exports.

Front-month West Texas Interemediate (WTI) crude futures trading at around $37.70 per barrel early on Thursday, set for the biggest weekly gain since early October. Internationally traded Brent futures trading at around $37.60 a barrel, as U.S. crude defended the small premium it regained this week for the first time in around a year.

Despite wild volatility this year, the U.S. benchmark S&P is barely positive for the year and it's uncertain whether stocks will finish 2015 in the green.

As of Wednesday's close, the S&P 500 is up 0.26 percent for the year so far, while the Nasdaq composite has posted a year-to-date gain of 6.5 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average remains more than 1 percent lower for 2015.

After Thursday's half-daysession, there will be just five more trading days left this year and accordingto analysts, stocks are typically higher on those five days, as well as duringthe first two of January.

European markets ended with strong gains after rising oil prices

European markets accelerated gains before the upcoming Christmas holidays and closed with strong gains as investors welcomed the recovery of oil prices and shares of mining companies.

The pan-European STOXX 600 finished 2.7 percent higherprovisionally, with all sectors closing sharply higher, helped by a positive trading session in the U.S.

Oil was in focus after U.S. crude prices rose above Brent on Wednesday, following an unexpectedly large drop in U.S. crude inventories.The Energy Information Administration reported crude inventories fell by 5.9 million barrels last week, which shocked markets as analysts had expected an increase of 1.1 million barrels. 

At the European market close, U.S. crude and Brent both traded at over $37 per barrel, up more than 3 percent on the day.

The European oil and gas stock index closed up around 4.8 percent as a result.

Shell and BG shares were also pushed higher by support from shareholder Aberdeen Asset Management for Shell's proposed $53 billion takeover of BG.

Shell released a statement saying the break-even price for the deal was somewhere in the low $60 range for Brent crude oil.

BG Group and Shell's shares both finished more than 5 percent higher on Wednesday.

Tullow Oil was one of the top performers on the STOXX 600, finishing over 10 percent up, with Seadrill and Statoil also posting strong gains, closing up 4.7 and 5.2 percent respectively.

Base metal prices ticked slightly higher on Wednesday, boosting mining stocks. Steel maker Arcelormittal finished over 11 percent higher, with major miners including Anglo American and Glencore, closing up over 8 percent.

This helped propel London's mining-heavy FTSE 100 index, which ended 2.6 percent higher.

Syngenta shares closed 2.5 percent up after the Swiss agrochemicals group said it was in talks with Monsanto, ChemChina and other companies but has not yet received a concrete takeover offer.

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi finished around 2.8 percent higher after it said it had submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new diabetes drug.

Shares in Games Digital tanked almost 38 percent, after the British video games retailer said in a trading update that it expected first half profits to fall due to the U.K.'s "challenging" market conditions and disappointing sales.

US economy grew by 2% in the third quarter

The gross domestic product of the USA increased by 2% in the third quarter, according to the third estimate, that was released today by BEA.
The result was below initial estimates for growth of 2.1%, but exceeded the forecasts of analysts, who expected more serious correction to 1.9%.
The change of the data is influenced mainly by the trade deficit, which was above previous estimates and the stockpiling recorded a slight increase according to the reported earlier.
Exports increased by 0.7% instead of 0.9% while imports rose 2.3% instead of 2.1%. The increase of stockpiling was revised from $ 90.2 billion to $ 85.5 billion.
However, home construction is represented more strongly than previous calculations, with recovery of 8.2 percent instead of 7.3 percent.
The growth of domestic consumption remains at 3% and business investment recorded an increase of 2.6% for previous estimates of 2.4%.
For the first nine months of 2015, the US economy registered expansion of 2.2%, and probably continued at the same pace in the last months of the year.

Oil prices recovered in anticipation of stockpiles data in US

Oil prices recovered on Tuesday, as main oil benchmarks WTI and Brent traded in the green area in anticipation of serial data on US reserves.

US crude oil recovered on Tuesday from Monday's steep losses, with Brent trading near its lowest level since mid -2004 on a worsening supply glut.
Futures for WTI rose 0.28% to trade at $35.91 per barrel, while Brent futures dropped 0.33% to $36.23 per barrel.
The current global surplus of oil is the major threat for oil prices that had been falling since the summer last year, with some analysts predicting the commodity has not yet reached its bottom.Investment bank
Goldman Sachs sees oil at $20 per barrel next year, while some investors say the price may go even lower.
Oil production in the US is expected to fall from the current about 9.1 million barrels a day (bpd) to around 8.6 million bpd by mid-2016.
"While the oil market is expected to remain in surplus through 2016, the rate of stock builds is expected to slow, and there is enough onshore storage to contain it," analysts at Barclays stated.
The fresh weekly stockpiles data by the American Petroleum Institute will be released later on Tuesday,while the official government data are due to be published on Wednesday.
Last week, crude stockpiles in the US jumped by 4.801 million barrels to hit 491 million barrels, an almost record high, even as the market had forecast a fall of about 500,000 barrels. For the week ending December 18,analysts predict a rise of about 1 million barrels.

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Markets pushed higher after Fed decision

As expected, the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in nine years by 25 basis points to a level of 0.25% - 0.50%. Fed reported that household consumption and business investment are solid, the labor market is strong and unemployment has decreased significantly over the last year.
Fed predicts interest rates of 1.4% at the end of 2016, which alludes for four increases next year. The projections for the end of 2017 are for 2.4%, which is a minimal change from one increase less than previously forecasted.
Forecasts for GDP growth, unemployment and inflation remained unchanged or minimally revised. Inflation is expected to lead to steady growth in medium term to levels of 2%.
Overall monetary policy is expected to help further economic activity.
On foreign exchange markets the dollar remained strong this morning and pushed the euro to 1.0850 and climbed to 122.40 against the yen.
Gold retained gains after the increase in interest rates by the Fed.
Silver was traded in tandem with gold after finding good support.
Platinum is found some support from signals of increasing demand from European carmakers.

Why the US dollar will continue to rise next year

The US dollar has already marked remarkable rise against other major currencies in anticipation of the Fed's decision on interest rates. According to experts from US investment bank J.P. Morgan, however, the growth of the dollar will continue next year.

"It feels like the market is probably already paying back a little bit of its long dollar positioning… We could potentially see a little bit of a dollar pullback but probably nothing beyond 1 percent in terms of the majors," said J.P. Morgan's head of EM Asia FX strategy, Jonathan Cavenagh.

There could be some profit-taking ahead of the year-end but any decline beyond 1 to 2 percentage points presents a buying opportunity, he said.

The bank anticipates the Fed to hike rates another four times next year driven bysupply-side dynamics as unemployment and labor participants rate fall, drivingwage growth and inflation.Higher interest rates should underpin the dollar as other central banks aremore likely to provide additional stimulus.

Next year, there is upside for the U.S. dollar against Asian currencies with a"strong risk" of further devaluation in the Chinese yuan through2016, said Cavenagh.

The house is forecasting a 4 to 4.5 percent weakening of the CNY against the USD. The yuan iscurrently trading at 6.46 against the dollar, near a four and a half-year low.The Chinese central bank devalued the yuan in August to support flagginggrowth.
Other Asian currencies may face further downside risks if commodity pricesweaken or countries face domestic headwinds, Cavenagh added.

"If you look at how the growth differentials between Asia and the rest ofthe world have been performing, they have generally been narrowing, so this ismore about a reflection of what is happening in terms of the underlyingfundamentals. Next year Asia is going to attract less capital inflows etc;places like the US and Europe are going to be more attractive."

Meet CFETS RMB Index

Last Friday China unveiled  a new index of the currency in an attempt to draw the attention of market participants away from the fluctuations of the yuan against the dollar.
People’s Bank of China said that the stability of the yuan should not be measured in terms of the dollar alone. Therefore index CFETS RMB will measure the strength of the Chinese currency against a basket of trading partner’s currencies. It was introduced by Chinese forex trading system (China Foreign Exchange Trade System), an arm of the PBOC that facilitates interbank trading.

Here's what, according to Bloomberg, market needs to know about the new index:

What is it?

The CFETS RMB Index will measure the yuan’s performance against a basket of 13 currencies, with weightings based mainly on international trade, according to the PBOC. The measure has an end-2014 level of 100 as its base level and will be published regularly, it said, without providing details of frequency.

The dollar has the largest weighting with 26.4 percent, followed by the euro and the yen with 21.4 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively. The measure also includes the currencies of Hong Kong, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada, Malaysia, Russia and Thailand. The U.S. accounted for 14.2 percent of China’s trade this year through November, while the European Union had a 14.3 percent share. About 95 percent of the yuan’s onshore spot transactions were against the dollar in 2014, according to a China International Capital Corp report.

CFETS will publish two other trade-weighted yuan indexes that reference performance against the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights and a Bank for International Settlements basket. The BIS-referenced gauge contains 40 currencies, while the SDR version has four.

Why now?

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise U.S. interest rates this week for the first time since 2006, a move that’s forecast to spur further gains in the greenback against the currencies of developing nations. The PBOC’s moves are being seen as part of efforts to ease concern about yuan depreciation and prepare the market for further weakness.

"Timing seems important" and it’s an attempt to cut the link with a strong dollar before the Fed tightens, Societe Generale SA strategists Jason Daw and Frances Cheung wrote in a note on Monday. "The PBOC is clearly preparing the market to interpret a weaker yuan versus the dollar not being devaluation."

Also, the International Monetary Fund voted to include the yuan in its Special Drawing Rights on Nov. 30, fulfilling a Chinese policy goal and giving Premier Li Keqiang scope to refocus his energies on helping revive growth in an economy expanding at the slowest pace since 1990. A weaker currency will help exports, which declined in all but two of the first 11 months of this year.

The idea of referencing the yuan to a basket of currencies isn’t new. In 2005, the PBOC said the yuan would be allowed to fluctuate against a basket of exchange rates. It just didn’t give any details of the composition and de facto pegs against the dollar during the 2008-2010 period as well as five months of this year suggested this wasn’t the case.

Yuan Implications?

It signals further depreciation against the greenback, according to yuan watchers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., DBS Bank Ltd. and Daiwa Capital Markets. The PBOC statement is official confirmation that the currency is no longer pegged to the dollar, according to Daiwa, which has the most bearish view on the yuan with a forecast of a 14 percent decline to 7.50 versus the U.S. currency by end-2016. Goldman sees a drop to 6.60, which compares with the current spot rate of 6.4585 in Shanghai.While the yuan has retreated 3.9 percent against the dollar this year, it has advanced against 12 of 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Referencing the yuan to several currencies doesn’t mean the exchange rate is pegged to that basket, according to an article on the PBOC website written by an unidentified commentator at CFETS.

Is This Unprecedented?

CFETS said its decision to publish its own exchange-rate index is in line with international practices, and that the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England have theirs as well. For example, the Fed’s trade-weighed real broad dollar index suggests the greenback rallied about 9 percent in the first 11 months of this year. The Monetary Authority of Singapore manages its currency against an undisclosed basket of exchange rates.

Bank of America said the latest statement is not an explicit shift to targeting the yuan against a basket of currencies, but an implicit attempt to manage market expectations.

Spillover Effect?

Further yuan weakness could spill over to other Asian currencies, according to Bank of America, which recommends keeping a close eye on the Japanese yen, Korean won, Taiwan dollar and Malaysian ringgit. CFETS may include the won and the Taiwan dollar in its new index when there are official reference rates for those currencies, according to Khoon Goh, Singapore-based strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

Main indices fell after oil price tumbled

European stocks plunged on Friday after the ongoing decline in oil prices has influenced the direction of major indices and they recorded the biggest weekly loss since August.

Stoxx Europe 600 fell by 2%, reaching 355.79 and thus registered a fourth consecutive losing session. Closing levels were the lowest since October until now. The overall decline of the indicator for the week was 4 percent and the weekly loss was second in a row.

The bad performance of the index this week was mainly due to the energy sector. Shares of oil and gas companies performed worst on Friday.

US crude oil was traded around seven years bottom after OPEC decided to supply a large quantity of oil, although the demand progressively decreases.

The consumer price index in Germany increased by 0.1% in November, but still remains below expectations of the ECB on inflation. Results can be justified mainly by the crisis in the energy sector.

The main US indices retreated on Friday after a fall in oil prices caused serious turmoil on Wall Street.  S&P 500 recorded its sharpest weekly decline since August, when shares fell on fears of economic retardation of China.

The hot atmosphere of the markets came shortly before the Fed to decide whether to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.

The data on US retail sales was slightly more encouraging in November, according to the Ministry of Commerce, announced Friday. It showed that the economy will continue to improve at a moderate pace over the next few months.

The index of producer prices in the US increased by 0.3% in November, but commodity prices excluding food and energy, rose only 0.1 percent.

The submitted economic data has almost no effect on Fed's decision to increase interest rates again in December or to postpone the move.

USD/CNY hit a four years low

The Chinese yuan fell on Friday to over a 4-year low against the US dollar amid increasingly lower rate set by the central bank, the country's economic slowdown and the strong capital outflow.
The pair USD/CNY is trading at 6.4553 and this is the lowest level from August 2011 onwards.

Earlier Friday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) had set the mid-point for the yuan at a new four and a half year low of 6.4358, down 0.2 percent from Thursday's fixing.
China's central bank lets the yuan spot rate rise or fall a maximum of 2 percent against the dollar relative to the official fixing rate.

Nomura's Craig Chan said the moves are in line with policymakers' repeatedly stated ultimate goal of a more market-determined exchange rate.

"There really isn't much perceived intervention in the markets," he said at a press conference Friday. Chan believes that the reason the yuan is being allowed to decline now, when the market mechanism shift was officially made in August was due to concerns over whether some debtors would struggle with external debt if the currency declined. 
In the intervening months, PBOC data has indicated substantial hedging activity and concern over external debt has subsided somewhat, he said.

Even with the declines, "our view is the currency is still over valued.They want to move closer to fair value, which we perceive to be around6.80," for the dollar-yuan pair, Chan said. Nomura expects the currency pair will hit that level by the end of 2016.

 Just to remind that the gross domestic product of China slowed to 6.9 percent in the third quarter of 2015, not being able to meet the target of 7 percent, fueling fears that the country's economy will fail to grow at the desired pace after years of explosive expansion.

Australia’s unemployment fell to lowest level in 20 months

Australia’s unemployment rate fell to 20-month low in November, following the strongest two-month period of job growth in 28 years.
Unemployment dropped to 5.8%, while analysts forecasted a rise of 5.9% to 6%.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total number of people with new jobs increased to 71 4000 in November and another 56 000 in October. Full-time employment is increased to 41 600, while the number of part-time jobs is up by 29 7000.

The Australian dollar spiked back above US73c on the news before falling back slightly to US72.86 at 5pm AEDT.

The employment figures represent the strongest two-month period of jobs growth since December 1987 and January 1988 and indicated that the Australian economy was coping better than expected with the end of the mining investment boom.

However, analysts cautioned that the data was volatile and noted that the ABS said that 52 700 of the job gains were due to a rotation in the groups of people being sampled for the monthly reading.

The jobs market seemed nevertheless to be strengthening, economists said.

“Even allowing for (the rotation of those being sampled), there was some improvement in hiring versus market expectations of a modest correction,” said Kieran Davies, Barclays chief economist for Australia.

Europe, USA and Asia stocks end mixed

Stock markets in Europe, USA and Asia closed mixed yesterday’s session.

The European Stoxx Europe 600 index declined by 0.54%. The German DAX index marked a decrease of 0.51%. The French CAC40 index fell by 0.56%. The Italian MIB stock index dropped by 0.23%. British FTSE100 index decreased by 0.17%.

US Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded an increase of 66 points (0.38 percent) to 17,634 points, S & P 500 rose 3.5 points (0.16 percent) to 2067 points in the morning session. Nasdaq recorded a decline of 14 points (0.27 percent) to 5084 points.

Shanghai Composite rose 0.65%, while Shenzhen Composite recorded a growth of 0.3%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell by 0.98% despite good data on machinery orders in October and revised upwards GDP growth for the third quarter.
South Korea's Kospi index remained almost unchanged, closing the session with a 0.04% increase. The Australian index S&P ASX 200 closed with 0.55% downwards. 

China's economy will be the biggest loser by the strong dollar

The strong dollar will inevitably have a negative effect for some countries. The biggest loser, however, will not be American but Chinese economy. The main reason for this is that the yuan was bounded to the US currency to improve their financial stability.
So when the dollar grows versus other currencies, expectations are for a recent increase in interest rates in the United States. The increase, however, applies to the Chinese currency. The problem for Beijing is that the suffering from slowdown second largest economy in the world is twice more dependent on trade than the US.

“It’s a problem,” said Yukon Huang, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and a former World Bank country director for China. “Excessive appreciation at a time when the economy is sinking is a bad thing.”

He and other economists, including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, expect China will try to avoid that by allowing the yuan to fall against the dollar. Such a move, though, risks triggering political criticism in the U.S. with a presidential election less than a year away.
“They’re stuck,” Huang said. “If they depreciate the currency, they’ll come under attack.” Yet “they need to do so.”

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called China the "No. 1 abuser" of the U.S. and has accused it of “wanton manipulation" of its currency.

The U.S. economy certainly has been hurt by the dollar’s advance since mid-2014. (It is up more than 20 percent against a basket of currencies during that time, though only about 3 percent against the yuan.) The stronger greenback has made American companies less competitive in world markets, helping push exports down 4.3 percent through the first 10 months of this year.

But China faces even bigger difficulties from a strengthening currency. Trade amounted to 42 percent of its gross domestic product last year, compared with 23 percent for the U.S.

The Force awakens for Disney

Cinema’s brand №1 returns. The force will awaken with the seventh episode of Star Wars. The premierе is on December 18, 2015 and beside cash records that will probably come after so many years of waiting, the industry has turned the popular brand in profit machine. The Walt Disney Company (DIS: XNYS) is only one of the companies that are on the crest of a wave and will benefit from the new project.
Online sales of toys in the United States reached a 12-month high of 17.7 mln US dollars in September, which is 7 times more than in September 2014. Hasbro (HAS: XNAS) has exclusive rights for the sale of toys by paying 225 mln US dollars for licenses to Disney.

What we know so far

In 2005 it looked like the Star Wars saga was officially over. Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox released Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which completed the prequels trilogy and tied the story back to the first film in the series. It was done, finished, kaput, and ended. 
But then along came Disney. In October 2012 the studio brokered a $4.05 billion deal to buy Lucasfilm, and with the deal came the announcement that they would be starting production on a whole new trilogy of Star Wars films that would keep the epic story going for years and years to come. Naturally,fan boys started to foam at the mouth with anticipation.

Disney’s shares

The previous episode of Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - had a budget of 115 mln US dollars. It brought revenues of nearly 849 mln US dollars. And this does not include revenues from the sales of DVD, computer games, toys, etc. The overall amount of incomes is about 33 billion US dollars. At the end of October 2012 Lukasfilm was acquired by Disney for 4 billion US dollars. Then the rumours about the new three films started.

Since the beginning of 2015 Disney's shares are up by 23%, presenting much better than S&P 500, which recorded only 2% growth for the same period.

Disney's share price 2013-2015. Source: Bloomberg

This increase is not accidental. Company’s earnings increased by 32% for the third quarter on an annual basis, which significantly exceeds the average for S&P 500. And earnings per share is up by 36%. So the trend of strong growth from the last two years retains.

And this is expected to continue. But let’s see what exactly will bring the saga!

Crude oil rises while US dollar is close to one-month low

Crude oil prices are growing today as OPEC ministers met in Vienna, while US dollar is close to  

one-month lows a day after staging its largest one-day fall in nearly seven years.

Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were last up 65 cents at $44.49 a barrel at 1100 GMT (0600 EDT), having fallen earlier this week to a low of $42.43, within cents of August's 6-1/2 year trough.

U.S. crude futures CLc1 were up 55 cents at $41.63.

In the last few weeks, investors have run up big bearish bets, or short positions, betting on a fall in the price of crude oil, which could be rapidly unwound if OPEC were to give any signal that it might adjust its stance on supply.
           

The dollar .DXY rose, which would ordinarily depress oil prices as this strength can encourage non-U.S. investors in crude to sell their holdings in exchange for a higher profit in their own currency.

But Thursday's 2-percent slide in the greenback, triggered by a surging euro, left the dollar near its weakest in a month, ahead of the monthly U.S. jobs report that could cement expectations for the first U.S. rate rise in nearly a decade from the Federal Reserve this month.

In Vienna, OPEC's poorer members have been piling pressure on their richer counterparts led by Saudi Arabia to cut supply, but Riyadh and its allies appeared on Friday to be ready to stick to their strategy of protecting market share.

"What OPEC have on their side is the market is in quite a bearish mode, so there are quite a few shorts out there ... if we see anything that resembles a move towards stabilizing the price, then we could see (oil) move 20 or 25 percent higher within a very short period of time" he said.

Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi said ahead of the meeting growing global demand could absorb an expected jump in Iranian production next year.

On the demand side, China is likely to double its strategic crude oil purchases next year to take advantage of a more than a 60 percent fall in oil prices since June 2014.

Beijing will add 70-90 million barrels ofcrude to storage tanks in 2016 to build up its strategic petroleum reserves(SPR), according to most respondents in a poll of five analysts and datacollected by Reuters analysts.