“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has done what few thought was possible during the pandemic era — top $1 billion at the global box office.
The co-production between Sony and Disney is now the first film to surpass this benchmark during the pandemic and has also claimed the title of highest-grossing movie of 2021. The last release to exceed $1 billion was 2019′s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” according to data from Comscore.
The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film reached $1.05 billion at the global box office over the Christmas weekend, beating out “The Battle of Lake Changjin,” a Chinese film released in November that has garnered $904.9 million worldwide.
″‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’s’ sprint to $1 billion within the context of this still pandemically-challenged marketplace is nothing short of astonishing,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “It demonstrates the power of a great movie to draw fans around the world to enjoy the shared and communal experience that only the movie theater can provide.”
Audiences flocked to theaters last weekend to catch “No Way Home” before potential spoilers could be leaked online. Now, they are returning for repeat viewings, a common occurrence for MCU movies.
Domestically, “No Way Home” is expected to tally around $81.5 million during its second weekend, a projected 69% drop from its debut. Most MCU films drop between 50% and 70% between their first and second weekend.
“The partnership between these two Hollywood entities is clearly one of great benefit to both,” BoxOffice.com chief analyst Shawn Robbins said of Sony and Disney.
The two companies brokered a deal that would allow the Sony-owned Spider-Man to appear in Marvel’s cinematic universe. The agreement not only meant that Marvel would be involved in Spider-Man’s solo projects, which were financed by Sony, but that the character could appear in other Marvel films.
Tom Holland, who portrays the newest iteration of Peter Parker, has now appeared in six Marvel Cinematic Universe films, including three solo features. Disney and Sony renegotiated this deal in 2019 to split production costs and box office receipts.
2017′s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” generated the second-highest box office run of any Spider-Man film released in theaters with its $880.4 million worldwide haul, according to Comscore data. Then 2019′s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” became the highest-grossing Spidey film and first to top $1 billion, with $1.132 billion in global ticket sales.
“The symbiotic circle they form could reap rewards for a long time to come, and with characters beyond just Spider-Man, if it continues to flourish creatively,” Robbins said. “The results of the past few years have shown it to be in the best interest of everyone for such a partnership to endure, and perhaps even inspire other tag-teams throughout the industry.”
$AMC Entertainment(AMC.US)$ $Sony(SONY.US)$ $Disney(DIS.US)$
Article excerpted from CNBC.

Your car may be more valuable than what’s in your portfolio.
Used auto prices are rising faster than bitcoin and other assets, according to market researcher Jim Bianco.
“If you want to know what the best investment you probably had in 2021, it’s that car sitting in your driveway or in that garage,” the Bianco Research President told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday. “It is appreciating faster than the stock market and lately faster than some cryptocurrencies.”
He’s building his analysis based on the Manheim index of used car prices, which is designed to track pricing trends in the market.
“In the last four months, they’ve gone up in price more than 20%. Not only is that more than the S&P, but over the last four months that’s more than bitcoin itself,” he said. “As of December 15, the latest set of data we’ve got, they’re just accelerating higher and higher right now. There’s no peak at least as of now.”
Bitcoin is up about 5% over the past four months based on Thursday’s stock market close. The S&P 500 is up 26% so far this year.
Bianco cites two bullish drivers in the used car market. The first is those getting priced out of new cars due to the semiconductor shortage.
Kelley Blue Book reports auto prices are at record highs. In November, the average price for a new car cost $46,320 and used ones hit $27,569, a 27% increase than the same time last year.
The second: Speculators who want to flip vehicles.
“What we’re seeing in used cars is a rush for people to buy them, and a rush for people to speculate on them,” he noted. “Buy it now because it’s only going to get more expensive.”
$S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ $Bitcoin(BTC.CC)$ $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US)$ $Ford Motor(F.US)$ $NIO Inc(NIO.US)$ $General Motors(GM.US)$ $Tesla(TSLA.US)$
Article excerpted from CNBC.

A few stocks well off their highs present buying opportunities at these levels, two traders say.
U.S. stocks bounced back on Tuesday after three trading sessions in decline, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average mounting a 560-point rebound as the government announced new measures to mitigate the omicron outbreak.
One stock still down nearly 20% from its 52-week highs is setting up for an even bigger rebound, Chantico Global CEO Gina Sanchez told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday.
"The demand and rebound in the global economy is not going away," particularly in metals and mining stocks, which dove sharply after President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act hit a snag, Sanchez said.
As coronavirus testing and treatment improve, a gradual economic reopening can keep driving demand for metals and minerals as the transition to clean energy comes back into focus, she said.
"That's driving further demand for the actual equipment that does all of this, that actually digs into the ground, and that leads us to Caterpillar," said Sanchez, who is also Lido Advisors' chief market strategist.
"Caterpillar has been beaten up, it's a massive dividend payer, and demand is probably going to be stable if not increasing in 2022," she said. "We actually see Caterpillar as an undervalued little treasure that will continue to raise their dividend and will weather the cycles."
Another major transition could drive gains in a fellow S&P 500 stock, Miller Tabak's Matt Maley said in the same interview.
Down almost 28% from its 52-week high, AT&T's stock could benefit from the 5G expansion, looks relatively cheap at seven times forward price-to-earnings and pays investors an 8.5% dividend yield, Maley said.
Though concerns are circling about a possible dividend cut, several Wall Street firms have upgraded their outlooks for AT&T in recent weeks, with Morgan Stanley applauding the company's focus on the 5G rollout and becoming a pure-play telecom provider.
"The thing I like the most on the fundamental side is the fact that they're cutting back on a huge amount of debt," said Maley, his firm's chief market strategist.
"A year ago, everybody was talking about that we were in this big corporate bond bubble. Well, guess what? It's a lot bigger now," he said. "It may not burst for a while, but the fact that they're cutting back on their debt is important."
While AT&T looks slightly overbought on its chart following the recent upgrades, its moving average convergence-divergence indicator — a momentum gauge that forecasts trend changes — just flashed a positive signal, Maley added.
"You see a positive MACD cross," he said. "That tells you that the momentum is not just short term, but could be intermediate term and could give it a real nice run at the beginning of the year." $AT&T(T.US)$ $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ $Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US)$
Article excerpted from CNBC.

The metaverse can be loosely defined as the next generation of the internet — a virtual world in which humans interact through three-dimensional avatars. Social network giant Facebook jumped into the trend in October, changing its name to Meta and announcing plans for $10 billion in related investments in the next year.
China is similarly abuzz with metaverse headlines. Beijing-based Baidu plans to hold its annual developers' event Monday in the virtual world of its metaverse app, XiRang. The company claims it will be China's first metaverse conference.
However, at a preview event Tuesday, the executive in charge of XiRang downplayed expectations by noting how many aspects weren't yet up to par.
Development of the app began last December, but it is still "negative six" years to full launch, Ma Jie, a vice president at Baidu, told reporters in Mandarin. In response to questions such as one asking for details on that timeline, Ma struck an apologetic tone: "That's a very good question, but I may not have a very good answer."
Baidu's app, as it exists now, can host 100,000 virtual attendees for Monday's conference, Ma said, showing reporters a graphic rendering of the virtual stadium.
He said Baidu aims to build an open-source platform for metaverse developers — an infrastructure for a virtual world.
Monday's event marks the opening of XiRang to developers, primarily in China for now.
"The metaverse, while a buzzword in the global tech and investment community, is still very much in its infancy," Brian Tycangco, analyst at Stansberry Research, said in email. "A lot of people don't even fully understand what the word means today or will mean in the next 3 to 5 years."
Baidu's timeline reflects the company's understanding of the metaverse, its conservative approach in managing expectations and China's regulatory environment, he said. "Baidu is clearly trying to move ahead to 'own' the metaverse in its home market while adhering to Beijing's new policies aimed at preventing monopolistic situations, hence the open platform."
$Baidu(BIDU.US)$ $Meta Platforms(FB.US)$
Article excerpted from CNBC.

Three former engineers of SpaceX, Musk's rocket company, built an automated pizza-making machine that can make a pizza every 45 seconds. Their "Stellar Pizza" robot restaurant will open in Los Angeles next spring. .
The company was founded in May 2019 by three former SpaceX engineers Benson Tsai, Brian Langone and James Wahawisan.
Benson Tsai is the CEO of Stellar Pizza. He worked for Elon Musk’s company for five years, designing advanced battery systems for rockets and satellites.
He assembled more than 23 former SpaceX employees to build an automated, non-touch pizza maker that can be mounted on the back of a truck.
One of the company’s employees is SpaceX’s former executive chef Ted Cizma. According to his LinkedIn profile, he created a food service project for the rocket company’s employees.
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