Tag: record

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Entertainment

‘Un Movie Dramatique’ Overview: College students Report the Paris Suburbs

‘Un Film Dramatique’ Review: Students Record the Paris Suburbs

In the documentary “Un Film Dramatique”, the artist Éric Baudelaire fulfills the task of creating a special work of art for Dora Maar, a newly built secondary school in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. For the project, Baudelaire filmed 21 students over four years and encouraged them to take the camera themselves. The finished film shows the liveliness and generosity that can emerge from bourgeois art.

The film passes in informal episodes. The filmmakers organized games and debates, and encouraged their classmates to discuss what they think the film will be about. Students consider what it means to be the subject and creator of a documentary and, in turn, calculate how their school fits into the world around them.

These youths are workers, often the children of immigrants, and they mock the bad reputation Saint-Denis has in Paris. With cameras in hand, they make their own record of what life is like in the suburbs. They dance, they sing, they offer house tours. Every child is confident, curious and cooperative.

The film has a patchwork quality that results from getting in and out from the perspective of different people. Some scenes are exciting when the Franco-Romanian student Gabriel-David debates through his Franco-Ivorian classmate Guy-Yanis what it means to have a country of origin if you have never lived there. But just as many sequences are banal – children film themselves watching TV as if they were streaming live on Instagram.

It is the cumulative effect of seeing the world through the eyes of these children that makes this film so profoundly joyful. This is an encouraging project, a philosophical excavation of a school marked by playful optimism.

A dramatic film
Not rated. In French with subtitles. Running time: Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. Watch virtual cinemas.

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Business

China box-office file reveals international pent-up demand for films

China box-office record reveals global pent-up demand for movies

Imax broke its box office records over the weekend of the New Year celebrations in China and the results predict what will happen when more US theaters resume operations this summer, CEO Rich Gelfond told CNBC on Tuesday.

The company, which produces immersive movie experiences, said it grossed $ 25 million between Friday and Sunday, up 45% from its pre-pandemic record.

“It tells you [that] If it’s safe to go outside and people want to go, run to the movies, “said Gelfond, who appeared on Closing Bell after the deal on Wall Street ended.

Detective Chinatown 3, a comedy adventure postponed from the release of Lunar New Year last year, captured a large portion of Imax ticket sales during the three-day period. The film grossed $ 23.5 million, the best results Imax has ever seen for a Chinese film. The action films “A Writer’s Odyssey” and “New Gods: Nezha Reborn” have also helped Imax hit both gross admissions and gross sales highs.

Coming from the news, Imax shares rose more than 6% on Tuesday, the best day since November. The stock closed at $ 19.85, up more than 5% after hours.

Imax took in more than 1 million people in cinemas in China on Friday, the best one-day attendance ever recorded. The results come despite capacity constraints that persist in entertainment businesses in China. The $ 25 million Imax brought in at the box office was better than the comparable opening week of 2019 that preceded the coronavirus pandemic.

Most theaters in China have a 75% capacity limit, while parts of the country with higher broadcasts of Covid-19 are limited to 50%. US theater restrictions vary by state. Limitations range from 25% capacity in Minnesota to 50% in Indiana to 100% in Alaska. This is based on data held by the National Association of Theater Owners.

The seven-day New Year holiday ends on Wednesday. Theaters in China closed around this time last year when the country shut down in response to the fast-spreading virus discovered in Wuhan city, Hubei province in late 2019.

The movie frenzy was fueled by China’s traditional travel season, which has largely been suspended due to coronavirus restrictions. Millions of time spent in the cinema with scrapped travel plans.

Gelfond said Imax expected strong participation in China over the weekend.

“I think the only thing you can say is the pent-up demand that people just get tired of sitting on their couches and watching streaming or whatever else they’ve been doing,” he said. “I think they are just happy to get out and I think that gives the rest of the world a guess.”

In the midst of the pandemic, Imax’s 2020 sales fell 74% from the first three quarters of last year through September. The company is expected to report fourth quarter and full year 2020 performance next month.

Gelfond said in December that the release of US films in 2021, including a number of films postponed from first releases last year, would be an “embarrassment of fortune” for Imax if the country’s theaters closed Should be opened at the beginning of the year.

According to the online ticketing platform Maoyan Entertainment, mainland China posted holiday week sales of 6.77 billion yuan, or $ 1.05 billion, on Tuesday. That figure surpassed the record 5.9 billion yuan in the same period of 2019.

Since the theaters reopened in June, box office revenues have increased. Coronavirus cases have declined sharply in countries like China, Australia and South Korea, and movie ticket sales have increased.

Global movie ticket sales decreased 70% year over year in 2020. Ticket sales in the Asia-Pacific region accounted for approximately 51% of global sales, up from 41% in 2019, based on information from Comscore and Gower Street. The US and Canadian box office sales accounted for just 18% of sales in 2020, compared to 30% in 2019.

– Reuters contributed to this report.

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Business

On-line playing is sending sports activities betting ETFs to file highs

Online gambling is sending sports betting ETFs to record highs

ETF players will double in online gambling and sports betting arena in 2021.

Betting interest has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, and a week after the Super Bowl LV, related ETFs are on a record run.

There are currently two main funds that offer centralized exposure to gaming and sports betting – the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming (BETZ) and the VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF (BJK). Both started last year and have quickly reached record highs.

BETZ in particular has increased by 96% since it was launched in early June.

VanEcks ETF offers a more traditional mix of casino stocks and gambling names – including Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands – that have been hit by travel and leisure issues. BETZ is a worldwide pure game with digital gaming stocks like online bookmaker PointsBet, Canadian betting company Score Media and even a handful of SPACs that focus on sports betting technology and data providers.

Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ) Top Holdings (% Weighting)
Related group 5.2%
PointsBet Holdings 4.8%
Penn National Gaming 4.5%
DraftKings 4.4%
Score Media and Gaming 4.2%

The BETZ fund has grown to more than $ 350 million in total assets under management in just seven months, and has posted inflows of $ 146 million so far this year.

Will Hershey, Co-Founder and CEO of Roundhill Investments, said the industry has been in hyper-growth mode (PASPA) since sports betting was legalized at the federal level in the US in 2018 with the repeal of the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act.

Record bets on Super Bowl weekend

It should come as no surprise that Super Bowl Sunday sparked an extra dose of intense betting activity. It’s the biggest betting day of the year for both Las Vegas sports betting and online betting shops – and it’s no different for the world of ETFs.

The numbers have grown from state to state, and the latest totals show that $ 444 million of regulated wagers were placed on the big game, with seven states still to report.

That’s already a total of $ 300 million last year and marks a record high or a bet on a single event. PlayUSA analysts expect the final balance sheet this year to top legal Super Bowl betting over $ 500 million – and that doesn’t include billions more coming in on black markets and unregulated sports books.

U.S. sports betting revenue is projected to reach $ 2.5 billion in 2021 and grow to $ 8 billion by 2025.

What is driving the rapid expansion? Hershey cites the ubiquitous shift from stationary to mobile and online services, as well as a major expansion of legalization across the country.

State legalization

More and more states like Tennessee and Virginia, which placed their first online sports betting in January, are getting online with legal sports betting.

“We expect the US market to mature and more states to go online. That will change and mean income for sports betting operators,” Hershey said on CNBC’s “ETF Edge” last week. “But perhaps more importantly, it will mean tax money for lawmakers.”

Sports betting has been legalized in some form in 21 states, including New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. However, some of the largest states – California, Florida, and Texas – have yet to follow.

Still, Hershey insists we are in the early stages of legalization and expects 10-12 more states to go online this year.

Kick-off for legalization

According to Hershey, it makes perfect sense for states to approve sports betting to fill the budget gap caused by the pandemic and generate additional tax revenue.

“I really think what is going on here, similar to what is going on in the cannabis industry, is that there are significant budget deficits at the state level, even at the state level,” Hershey said. “We’re just getting started. If we look at the opportunity for US markets [alone]We’re talking $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion in terms of the total addressable sports betting market. “

With the rapid rise of players like DraftKings and FanDuel, interest in sports betting has shifted dramatically from daily fantasy sports to live betting – but Hershey believes that most of the real money will continue to flow into online casinos, with sports books mostly the Drive customer acquisition.

A game of blackjack would still offer higher margins and much more predictable revenue than, say, this year’s Super Bowl, where Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense stunned sports fans by giving the Kansas City Chiefs a 31-9 blowout loss gifts.

“Who could have seen this coming?” Said Hershey. “You have to do that as sports betting. Live betting technology will be so advanced that we won’t even talk about the next 10 minutes, but rather whether the next field will be a curve or a fastball. I think this will be real monetization opportunities open when the technology gets to that point. “

Some skeptics may oppose the idea of ​​gambling online or buying more pot to balance the national budget, but Dave Nadig, director of research at ETF Trends, said he saw tax history as inevitable.

“Certainly the legalization of cannabis was a big part of it the demand for tax revenue at the state and local level,” he said in the same “ETF Edge” interview. “I think we will honestly see the same thing in anything we have previously regulated as a ‘sin activity’, such as gambling.”

Bottom line: when it comes to hot, lively topics associated with gamification trends, ETF investors are right there.

Disclosure: CNBC’s parent company Comcast and NBC Sports are investors in FanDuel.

Disclaimer of liability

Categories
Health

U.S. experiences document variety of Covid deaths in January

U.S. reports record number of Covid deaths in January

Lila Blanks holds the coffin of her husband Gregory Blanks, 50, who has died of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), before his funeral in San Felipe, Texas, USA, on January 26, 2021.

Callaghan O’Hare | Reuters

The United States started 2021 with the deadliest month of the coronavirus pandemic yet.

The January death toll has already surpassed the previous record number of deaths in December, according to Johns Hopkins University, when over 77,400 people died of Covid-19 in the United States. According to the data, the pandemic has killed more than 79,200 people so far this month.

In the past seven days, the country has reported an average of more than 3,300 deaths from Covid-19 per day, according to Hopkins, up 12% from a week ago.

There is hope that the death toll will slow in the coming weeks. The number of new cases reported daily in the US, which epidemiologists use as a leading indicator of whether the outbreak is increasing or decreasing, has steadily declined in recent days as an increase from interstate travel and holiday celebrations appears to be easing.

The U.S. reported about 146,600 new cases Tuesday, bringing the Hopkins average from seven days to just over 166,300 and about 17% from a week, according to Hopkins.

The number of people currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in the United States is also falling, but remains worryingly high. More than 108,900 people were hospitalized with the disease on Tuesday, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, which was set up by journalists in the Atlantic. That’s not the high point of the more than 130,000 hospital patients reported earlier this month.

However, the potential spread of new, contagious strains of virus in the US, coupled with a slower-than-expected vaccine adoption, threatens to reverse advances in combating the outbreak.

First discovered in the United Kingdom and become the dominant strain there, the B.1.1.7 strain of the virus has been found in a number of states in the United States. Epidemiologists say the strain appears to be spreading more easily, and British officials have said it could also be more deadly.

As of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 293 cases related to this strain of the virus had been found in the United States, mainly in Florida and California.

Earlier this week, the Minnesota Department of Health confirmed the first known US case of another strain of the virus that was originally discovered in Brazil. Another so-called worrying variant, named 501Y.V2 or B.1.351 depending on the epidemiologist, was first discovered in South Africa and worries scientists, since vaccines and drugs against this strain seem to be less effective. No cases related to this strain have been discovered in the United States

To curb the spread of the virus and especially the importation of new strains, President Joe Biden banned most non-US citizens traveling from South Africa from entering the US earlier this week, and increased travel restrictions for Europe, the UK and Brazil.

The president painted a dire picture of the outbreak, saying on Monday that the US “will see between 600,000 and 660,000 deaths before we start turning the corner on a large scale”.

While Biden urges people to wear masks and follow public health measures like social distancing, he is working to push the adoption of the Covid vaccines and blaming the Trump administration for the initially slow pace. On Monday, he said the US could surpass 1.5 million vaccinations per day, compared to its previous target of 1 million per day, which the last administration had almost reached.

“Time is of the essence,” he said earlier this week. “We are trying to get at least 100 million vaccinations in 100 days and move in the next 100 days where we are way beyond that to get to the point where we can get herd immunity in a country.” of over 300 million people. “

On Tuesday, he said the government was working to buy an additional 200 million doses of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, increasing US supply from 400 million doses to 600 million, although that won’t speed up the pace of vaccinations anytime soon. He also said the administration will increase the number of cans shipped to states each week by about 20%. Some states have stated that they are able to vaccinate more people but are limited by the supply.

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Business

Is Dubai’s celebration over? File Covid instances spark fears of recent lockdown

Is Dubai’s party over? Record Covid cases spark fears of new lockdown

Fireworks emanated from the Burj Khalifah tower in Dubai during the New Year’s Eve celebration on December 31, 2020, which attracted thousands of tourists and saw relaxed restrictions on social gatherings, allowing up to 30 people per household to gather. AFP via Getty Images

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – On the surface, Dubai’s party scene feels more alive than ever – bustling restaurants and bars, beaches and hotel pools inhabited by laid-back residents and tourists enjoying the winter sun.

However, daily record breaking Covid-19 infections in the Middle East’s commercial and vacation hub have made the chatter of a possible new lockdown inevitable.

“It’s getting really bad. How long did you think you could get away with it?” Farah S., a Dubai attorney, told CNBC.

According to the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Health, the new cases recorded on Monday hit a daily high in the country of 3,591. When the country imposed its strictest lockdown in March and April, which left orders for home and closed borders completely, daily cases were less than a tenth that number.

Just last week the 3.3 million desert emirate – whose economy depends heavily on tourism and hospitality – began making changes that believe the government’s message that everything is under control.

On January 21, the authorities ordered all hospitals in Dubai to suspend unnecessary operations for a month. Around the same time, a policy was passed suspending all “entertainment” activities in restaurants and bars. The limit for weddings, social events and private parties has been reduced from 30 to 10 people. As of January 27, restaurants and cafés will require more space between the tables and fewer people per table.

Customers and equipment in gyms now need to be 3 meters apart, as opposed to the previous 2 meters, although this 2 meter requirement has often not been applied very sensibly.

Dubai fired the head of its health department on Sunday and replaced Humaid al-Qutami, who had held the office since 2018, with a new representative. The authorities did not provide a reason for the replacement and did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Some Dubai residents have claimed that hospitals are running out of intensive care beds, although this has not been confirmed as hospitals and health officials failed to respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Over the weekend, the UAE Ministry of Health posted a post on its Instagram story entitled “URGENT EMPLOYMENT” offering fixed-term contracts for intensive care nurses in Dubai, as well as Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah. This came just days after the order to cease non-essential operations.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, 281,546 cases with 798 deaths have been confirmed in the United Arab Emirates so far. The death rate of 0.3% is well below the global average.

A safe haven for 2020

After the Emirate of Dubai, which, in contrast to the more conservative capital Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, pursued a strategy of openness, kept its cases well below 2,000 per day for the entire year 2020, it turned out to be a pandemic success story.

It was certified as a “Safe Travel” destination by the World Tourism Council last summer and attracted celebrities and influencers. There has been a surge in occupancy at hotels and theme parks, and tourists from all over the world flocked to Dubai for a sense of missing normalcy. The wearing of masks continued to be ubiquitous and testing is widespread.

It has only been in the past two months that the city has hosted golf and polo tournaments, shopping and film festivals, and concerts to promote its image as safe and welcoming ahead of the long-awaited 2020 World’s Fair, postponed to October 2021 due to the pandemic.

However, the new and highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, first identified in the UK, is believed to have sparked the recent surge in cases as thousands of UK tourists came in over the holidays to avoid the UK’s tough lockdown. Since December 30th, the daily numbers have more than tripled within a month.

Women sunbathers sit on a beach in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on July 24, 2020, while the Burj al-Arab Hotel can be seen behind it. After a painful four-month hiatus in tourism that ended in early July, Dubai is paying off as a safe travel destination with the resources to ward off coronaviruses.

KARIM SAHIB | AFP via Getty Images

Andy Pearson, a British engineer living in Dubai, blames large numbers of tourists whom he believes do not meet local safety requirements.

“The police should do more checks on party areas to make sure people are obeying the rules,” he said. “Tourists don’t care because they can just go home – they ruin it for the rest of us.”

The Dubai Media Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether a lockdown is imminent or what other changes will be made to counter the rise in cases.

Countries are putting barriers to cases in the UAE and testing concerns

Another red flag came last Thursday when Denmark announced a five-day suspension of flights from the UAE on suspicion that the Covid tests carried out on travelers before they departed Dubai were not reliable.

“We cannot ignore such a suspicion,” said the Danish transport minister, adding that at least one citizen had returned from Dubai with the variant recently discovered in South Africa, among several others whom he described as positive for Covid.

The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Health pushed back the announcement, claiming that all accredited testing centers in the United Arab Emirates operate to international standards and are regularly checked. According to the UAE authorities, talks are ongoing between the two countries.

Earlier this month, the UK and Israel introduced quarantine requirements for travelers from the UAE. The United Arab Emirates had previously been on the UK Safe Travel Corridor, which negated the need for quarantine times for arrivals.

The Covid-19 case numbers relate to the entire country and do not indicate where the infections are concentrated. But while Dubai welcomes tourists – some require negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results before boarding and others receive tests on arrival – Abu Dhabi still requires that anyone flying into the emirate be quarantined for ten days on arrival is provided. Participants from Dubai to Abu Dhabi are also required to provide a number of negative PCR test results.

Nationwide vaccination boost

The developments come as the UAE nationwide vaccination campaign is in full swing. This is the second fastest rollout in the world after Israel.

China’s Sinopharm vaccine is available nationwide for free to all residents aged 16 and over, while Dubai’s launch of Pfizer BioNtech vaccine, which began in late December, was announced as late on Saturday. The Dubai authorities attribute the delay to a “global shortage”.

Still, the UAE wants to achieve its goal of vaccinating half of its population by the end of March. Emergency approval was announced last week for the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, for which Phase 3 studies are still ongoing in Abu Dhabi.

Certain industries now mandate weekly PCR testing for unvaccinated employees. Some local residents believe that a pressure campaign to promote vaccination is being carried out. For many who live in Dubai, this step – and other restrictions – is welcome.

“I think they should be banned for two weeks,” said Sara El Dallal, an education advisor based in Dubai. “Restrictions have been in place since last week, and yet the numbers haven’t gone down.” She noted that state schools have been keeping their classes online since early January.

Melissa Webb, a Dubai-based yoga teacher, infected herself with the virus after returning from a family visit to the UK over Christmas. However, she tested negative upon arrival in Dubai, only to test positive three days later when attempting to enter Abu Dhabi. She told her story as a warning story.

“Of course I was happy about six months of normalcy, but since Christmas I’ve felt very nervous again,” she said.

“But I recognize the need for the economy to remain open, otherwise we won’t be able to live here much longer anyway.”

Categories
World News

Inventory futures fall after Wall Avenue closed at file highs to finish final week

Stock futures fall after Wall Street closed at record highs to end last week

Traders work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

NYSE

Stock futures fell overnight on Sunday as investors assessed the prospect for further Covid-19 relief.

The futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 130 points. S&P 500 futures traded 0.5% lower and Nasdaq 100 traded 0.3%.

The stock market had a solid week ahead of the 2021 start as investors looked to a forcible siege of the Capitol and focused on the prospect of additional fiscal stimulus after a Democratic Congress. The S&P 500 climbed to a record 1.8% for four days last week. The Dow and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.6% and 2.4%, respectively, and also hit all-time highs.

“Progress is based on three main pillars: strong corporate profits, massive momentum and vaccination optimism,” said Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge in a note on Sunday. “Expectations for the incentives are rising – Biden’s plan may be worth several trillion dollars on paper, but what actually gets passed will likely be much smaller.”

President-elect Joe Biden on Friday promised a bold introduction of economic stimulus that will be in “trillions of dollars”. Further details will follow in an official announcement on Thursday, six days before he takes office.

The need for further incentives was underscored by an unexpected job loss in December. The Labor Department reported Friday that the number of non-farm workers fell by 140,000 as new lockdown restrictions hit virus-sensitive industries. This was the first monthly decline since April.

Political turmoil should continue this week and it remains to be seen when or if the markets will be affected. Democrats, backed by some Republicans, are starting impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives to instigate the mob attack. The House Rules Committee is expected to expedite the impeachment process without hearing or voting by the committee.

For now, the market seems to be looking past that as Congress successfully confirmed Biden’s election victory and the Democrats, who are now in the Senate majority, are likely to pursue another major stimulus. If these events start to delay or derail these stimulus plans, traders may pay more attention.

Some on Wall Street are seeing a pullback for the market, especially after a surprisingly strong 2020. The S&P 500 rose 16.3% over the past year.

“After being bullish for a few months, we are definitely becoming more cautious in the stock markets at these levels,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak, in a note on Sunday. “We believe the vast majority of the rally from the March lows is behind us … and that a correction is likely to begin sometime in the first quarter of this year.”

Last week, the benchmark yield on 10-year government bonds surpassed 1% for the first time since the March pandemic-sparked turmoil.

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Business

2020 one among hottest years on document, tied with 2016

2020 one of hottest years on record, tied with 2016

The Bond Fire, triggered by a structural fire that spread into nearby vegetation in Silverado, CA on Thursday, December 3, 2020. Dangerous fire conditions prevail in large parts of Southern California as dry, gusty winds are expected in Santa Ana from the northeast.

Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

2020 is linked to 2016 as the hottest year on record, marking the end of the hottest decade on the books as the world grapples with global climate change, according to a study published on Friday.

The outcome of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an intergovernmental agency that supports European climate policy, continues an unstoppable upward trend in global temperatures as greenhouse gas emissions store heat in the atmosphere.

“2020 will be characterized by exceptional warmth in the Arctic and a record number of tropical storms in the North Atlantic,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus service.

“It is no surprise that the last decade has been the warmest ever, and it is yet another reminder of the urgency of ambitious emissions reductions to prevent adverse climate impacts in the future,” he said.

Signs of record heat in 2020 increased over the course of the year: dry and hot conditions led to massive record fires in Australia and later in the western United States. The Arctic sea ice fell to the second lowest level ever. and monthly temperature records were destroyed worldwide.

Last year was 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.08 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the period between 1981 and 2010 and about 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.25 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the pre-industrial period between 1850 and 1850 1900, according to the agency.

Some parts of the world heated up more than others as carbon emissions continued to rise. Europe had the hottest year ever, with temperatures 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.53 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than 2019, which was previously the warmest year.

The Arctic and northern Siberia recorded the largest temperature increases, reaching over 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the annual average. Western Siberia had exceptionally hot winter and spring, while the Siberian Arctic and much of the Arctic Ocean had exceptionally hot temperatures in summer and autumn.

Large forest fires near the Arctic Circle also released record levels of carbon emissions in 2020, and Arctic sea ice hit record lows in July and October.

“Until global net emissions go down to zero, CO2 will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere and further drive climate change,” said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

2016, the hottest year of the previous year, was very hot as temperatures were affected by an El Nino, which sent a significant amount of heat from the Pacific into the atmosphere. The past six years have been the warmest six in history.

– Graphics by Nate Rattner of CNBC

Categories
World News

2020 is Tied With 2016 as Hottest 12 months Ever on Report

2020 is Tied With 2016 as Hottest Year Ever on Record

Last year, 2016 was the hottest year on record, European climate researchers announced on Friday as global temperatures continued their unstoppable rise caused by the emission of heat-storing greenhouse gases.

The record warmth that triggered deadly heat waves, droughts, violent forest fires and other environmental disasters worldwide in 2020 occurred despite the development of La Niña in the second half of the year, a global climate phenomenon characterized in large part by surface cooling of the equatorial Pacific.

And while 2020 may tie the record, the last six years are among the hottest ever, said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“It’s a reminder that if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures will change and will keep changing,” said Dr. Vamborg.

According to Copernicus, a European Union program, the global average temperature in 2020 was 1.25 degrees Celsius warmer than the average from 1850 to 1900, before emissions from the spread of industrialization increased. The 2020 average was slightly below the 2016 average, too small a difference to be significant.

Some regions experienced exceptional warming. For the second year in a row, Europe had the warmest year ever, suffering from deadly heat waves. The temperature difference between 2020 and 2019 was remarkable, however: 2020 was 0.4 degrees Celsius, or nearly three quarters of a degree Fahrenheit, warmer.

Although not quite as drastic as in Europe, the temperatures in North America were also above average. Warming played a crucial role in the widespread drought that hit most of the western half of the United States and in the violent forest fires that devastated California and Colorado.

The Arctic is warming much faster than anywhere else, a feature that was reflected in the 2020 numbers. Average temperatures in some parts of the Arctic last year were more than 6 degrees Celsius higher than the average between 1981 and 2010. Europe, however, was 1.6 degrees Celsius higher last year than for the same reason.

In the Arctic, and particularly in parts of Siberia, conditions were unusually warm for most of the year. The heat caused the vegetation to dry out, which in Siberia helped fuel one of the most intense forest fire seasons in history.

Parts of the southern hemisphere experienced sub-par temperatures, possibly due to the arrival of conditions in La Niña in the second half of 2020.

Dr. Vamborg said it was difficult to directly attribute temperature differences to La Niña, but the cooling effect of the phenomenon could be why December 2020, when La Niña got stronger, was only the sixth warmest December ever, during most of the other months of the year were in the top three.

Zeke Hausfather, a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent research group in California, said that La Niña’s greatest impact on global temperatures typically occurs several months after conditions peak in the Pacific. “While La Niña has certainly had some cooling effect in recent months, it will likely have a bigger impact on temperatures in 2021,” he said.

Dr. Hausfather said it was noteworthy that 2020 coincided with 2016 because that year’s record heat was fueled by El Niño. El Niño is essentially the opposite of La Niña when surface warming in the Pacific tends to increase global temperatures.

So 2020 and 2016 are equally warm, said Dr. Hausfather, which means the past five years of global warming have had a cumulative effect roughly the same as El Niño.

Berkeley Earth will publish its own analysis of global temperatures for 2020 later this month, as will the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. The three analyzes take a similar approach and essentially produce thousands of temperature measurements worldwide.

Copernicus uses a technique called reanalysis that uses fewer temperature measurements but adds other weather data like barometric pressure and feeds everything into a computer model to get the temperature averages.

Despite the differences, the results of the analyzes tend to be very similar.

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Business

AMC seeks $550 million as inventory closes at report low

AMC seeks $550 million as stock closes at record low

The world’s largest cinema chain is still around $ 550 million away from its fundraising goal.

On Tuesday, AMC CEO Adam Aron said the company managed to raise just over $ 200 million of the $ 750 million it will need to fund its cash needs by the end of this year.

“We need to raise more but we are working hard and we have a plan and blueprint to get there,” he said. “Only time will tell if we get there or not.”

Aron’s appearance on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” comes on the same day that his company’s stock fell to a 52-week intraday low of $ 1.91 per share and closed at a record low of $ 1.98 per share.

AMC has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic and its stocks reflect investors’ lack of confidence in the immediate recovery of the cinema industry. The company’s shares fell more than 70% in 2020.

The cinemas had to close in mid-March and spent more than six months closed to the public last year. AMC operates around 400 of its almost 600 theaters with limited seating and shorter opening hours. Theaters in New York City and parts of California will remain closed.

The company is currently trying to renegotiate its rent payments with landlords and is looking to cut, cut and deferred. Should the company not be able to secure additional sources of liquidity, it may have to initiate bankruptcy proceedings.

AMC is not eligible for grants from the Save Our Stages Act of $ 15 billion, which is part of the far larger coronavirus aid package of $ 900 billion, as it is a publicly traded company with locations in more acts as 10 states.

AMC went into the pandemic with nearly $ 5 billion in debt, which it amassed by adding luxury seating to its theaters and buying out rivals like Carmike and Odeon.

The company has already renegotiated its debt to improve its balance sheet and received a $ 100 million investment from Mudrick Capital Management in December.

“We cut out our work for ourselves,” said Aron. “We have to raise more money to get to the other side. Still, we’ve done it four times and that’s our focus.”

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Inventory futures rise as market tries to reclaim report highs in last days of 2020

Stock futures rise as market tries to reclaim record highs in final days of 2020

U.S. stock index futures were slightly higher early Wednesday morning as the market tried to regain record highs in the final days of 2020.

Contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average scored 114 points. S&P 500 futures rose 15 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 48 points.

Key averages closed lower Tuesday, abandoning early gains that drove stocks to record highs on the opening bell. Both the Dow and S&P 500 snapped three-day winning streaks, each down 0.22%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.38%.

The Russell 2000 closed 1.85% lower for the third straight year.

In Washington, lawmakers continued to disagree on direct payments to Americans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Chuck Schumer’s efforts to expedite the bill passed by Parliament late Monday that would increase checks from $ 600 to $ 2,000. The stimulus payments could run out on Tuesday evening, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

President Donald Trump backed higher payments and said in a tweet on Tuesday that the move should be approved “ASAP. $ 600 is not enough!”

With only two trading days a year left, the key averages are on the way to rising higher by 2020. The Dow was up 6.3% over the year, while the S&P 500 was up 15.36%. Despite recent selling pressures, the Russell 2000 is still up 17.4% over the year.

The clear winner since the beginning of the year remains the Nasdaq Composite, which is up 43%.

“We expect strong economic growth to recover in 2021 after headwinds from the pandemic in 2020 and the US-China trade war in 2019,” said Brian Demain, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors. “While the leadership so far has been tight – mostly limited to the digital economy – we expect a deepening recovery as vaccines become widespread and consumers can re-enter the physical economy,” he added.

The number of Covid cases is still higher. The US is currently seeing at least 180,905 new cases and at least 2,210 virus-related deaths per day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University. On Tuesday, the US confirmed its first case of the faster-spreading strain of coronavirus, originally discovered in the UK

Some investors say another potential headwind for stocks ahead is the surge in some of the hottest stocks of the year.

Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Peterffy said on Squawk Alley on Tuesday that a “fantastically unusual” thing had happened in the past few days: his customers are net below the market for the first time.

“Our customers are usually on the sell side of options, and there is such a demand for these out of the money options that our customers tend to become sellers,” he said. “So the Robinhood people have long options and Interactive Brokers clients have few options,” he added. In other words, while this is not necessarily a direct bet on the downtrend, customers on the other hand take advantage of such high demand.

Charles Bobrinskoy, vice chairman of Ariel Investments, echoed the dangers of a dynamic market.

“It cannot be that the way to win investing is just to buy what has increased in recent years,” he said Tuesday on CNBC’s Closing Bell. “That works in momentum markets. Momentum markets are wonderful until they turn. But when they turn, it’s ugly,” he said.

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