The daily business briefing: December 23, 2019
1.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker dominated the weekend box office with $175.5 million in North American ticket sales. The J.J. Abrams movie's debut was the third biggest December launch ever, behind Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015 and Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017. The Rise of Skywalker brought in a total of $373.5 million worldwide. The big debut for the ninth chapter in the Star Wars series topped off a huge year for Disney, which already has six films that have topped $1 billion at the box office this year. Still, The Rise of Skywalker received mixed reviews, and some analysts had expected it to make as much as $200 million domestically in its first weekend. [The Hollywood Reporter, CNN]
2.
Bayer shares jumped by 3.5 percent on Monday in Germany after the U.S. government filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying a federal appeals court should reverse a $25 million decision against the company in a Roundup lawsuit. A lower court ruled in favor of a man who sued the company because he blamed the popular weed killer made by Bayer's U.S. unit Monsanto for his cancer. Bayer denies Roundup causes cancer, and the Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department on Friday filed the brief supporting the company's position. The Monday stock surge lifted Bayer shares to a 14-month high. [Reuters]
3.
U.S. stock index futures were mostly flat early Monday after ending last week with fresh record highs as global trade tensions eased. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all were up by about 0.1 percent several hours before the opening bell. The three main U.S. indexes made solid gains on Friday as President Trump tweeted that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a "very good talk" about the "phase one" deal American and Chinese negotiators recently reached toward ending the trade war between the world's two largest economies. China said Monday it would cut tariffs on more than 850 products starting Jan. 1. [CNBC]
4.
President Trump has invited Boris Johnson for a White House visit following the British prime minister's recent election landslide, The Sunday Times of London reported. Johnson campaigned promising to "Get Brexit Done." He is pushing to lead the U.K. out of the European Union on Jan. 31. Johnson's office said no formal timing for the visit had been set, but a White House source said mid-January was a possibility. The invitation came as the two sides start negotiations for a post-Brexit trade agreement, and Trump faces a Senate impeachment trial. Trump congratulated Johnson after his Conservative party's win, saying the U.S. and Britain could now make a trade deal that could be "far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the E.U." [The Sunday Times, New York Post]
5.
China announced Monday that it was cutting tariffs on pork and about 800 other products. The reduction of levies on frozen pork comes as the country faces a pork shortage that has become a major domestic challenge for Beijing. The government has taken several steps to ease the crisis, which was cause by an outbreak of African swine fever that devastated the hog population. The tariff cut came days after the Commerce Ministry announced it would release 40,000 tons of pork from the country's strategic reserves in an effort to stabilize prices before the Lunar New Year holiday week in late January. China saw its biggest inflation increase since 2012 in November after pork prices more than doubled from a year earlier. [The Washington Post, CNN]
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