Bitcoin futures started to trade. According to The Wall Street Journal:
The bitcoin contract expiring in January opened at $15,000 and spiked to $16,660 within the first six minutes of trading, an 11% surge. Prices later dropped, then rebounded, and the contract was trading at $18,220 around 10:30 p.m., according to data from Cboe. About 1,000 contracts changed hands in the first three hours of trade.
Box Office Mojo reports that “Coco” stayed on top at the box office this weekend:
With an estimated $18.6 million, Disney and Pixar’s Coco topped the weekend box office as its domestic gross climbs to $135.5 million domestically. While the film’s opening weekend was closer to that of 2000’s Tangled, it has since started playing closer to Disney’s Moana, which also topped the weekend box office for three straight weeks last year following its Thanksgiving debut prior to ceding the #1 spot to Rogue One. Coco will do the same next weekend as Disney unleashes Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Internationally, Coco added an estimated $55.3 million from 35 markets bringing the film’s international cume to $254 million for a global tally reaching an estimated $390 million.
WB and DC’s Justice League finished in second place once again, dropping 42% and delivering an estimated $9.5 million as its cume now climbs to $212 million domestically. The film also added an estimated $15.4 million internationally this weekend as it crossed $400 million overseas and now tops $600 million worldwide.
The Federal Reserve is about to make the biggest rate hike in over a decade, and it may affect equities. According to Bloomberg:
Wall Street economists are telling investors to brace for the biggest tightening of monetary policy in more than a decade.
With the world economy heading into its strongest period since 2011, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. predict average interest rates across advanced economies will climb to at least 1 percent next year in what would be the largest increase since 2006.
As for the quantitative easing that marks its 10th anniversary in the U.S. next year, Bloomberg Economics predicts net asset purchases by the main central banks will fall to a monthly $18 billion at the end of 2018, from $126 billion in September, and turn negative during the first half of 2019.
Global arms sales were up for the first time in seven years. According to CNBC:
International sales of arms and military services grew again in 2016 after five years of consecutive decline, according to new data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The world’s 100 largest armaments firms posted total sales of $374.8 billion in 2016, 1.9 percent higher than in 2015, the research institute said Monday. SIPRI said that a noticeable trend was a rise in sales for U.S. arms producers and the number of U.S. military services companies ranked in the SIPRI top 100.
“At a combined total of $217.2 billion, arms sales of U.S. companies listed in the SIPRI Top 100 grew by 4.0 percent in 2016,” it said, attributing the rise to U.S. military operations overseas as well as acquisitions of large weapon systems by other countries.
Steve Bannon’s return to Sirius XM Radio has caused controversy, according to CNNMoney
Steve Bannon’s return to a radio hosting gig is kicking up some celebrity backlash.
Actors Seth Rogen, John Leguizamo, and singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge have all promised to boycott SiriusXM for allowing Bannon to appear on the subscription radio service.
The outcry started after SiriusXM announced last Tuesday that Bannon, the former chief strategist for President Trump, would be a host on the “Breitbart News Daily” radio show. It airs on Patriot, a conservative station.
“I can’t bring myself to appear on the same service that has decided to support Steve Bannon,” Rogen tweeted Friday, adding that he canceled a scheduled press tour on SiriusXM. Rogen stars in the new film “The Disaster Artist.”
One of the largest owners of bitcoin said the value of the asset still has a long way to go. According to Fortune:
Cameron Winklevoss thinks the booming bitcoin market could reach much, much higher, saying the cryptocurrency’s current market value is still just a sliver of its potential.
“We’ve always felt that bitcoin, given its properties, is gold 2.0,” he told CNBC on Friday. “Gold is scarce, bitcoin is actually fixed. Bitcoin is way more portable and way more divisible [than gold].”
Winklevoss then compared bitcoin’s market cap, around $300 billion yesterday, with gold’s at $6 billion. “If bitcoin disrupting gold is true . . . then you can see 10 to 20 times appreciation because there is significant delta still.”
“Long term, directionally,” Winklevoss continued, “[Bitcoin] is a multitrillion-dollar asset – I don’t know how long it takes to get there.”
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