Weekly news summary for December 17 to December 23
Friday, Dec. 17: AMC Shares Climb on Spider-Man Premiere
Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. were up 19% on Friday, as it saw 1.1 million people attend the opening night for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the movie that broke all box office records in the history of the US theater operator.
AMC closed at $29.12, having gained 23.1% to $30.09 earlier in the session, while GameStop Corp.’s shares also climbed by 9.0% to $157.58, as investors take advantage of meme stocks following weeks of losses in prices of the two companies.
Monday, Dec. 20: Worldwide M&A Activity Rises Above $5T in 2021
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) worldwide rose to an all-time record this year, as a considerable amount of capital and significantly high valuations raised deal-making levels.
Global M&A value topped $5 trillion for the first time in 2021, with the tech and healthcare sector leading the surge of 63% to $5.63 trillion, beating the $4.42 trillion record set in 2007, while corporate balance sheets in the US sat on $2 trillion worth of cash.
Tuesday, Dec. 21: Lira Gains on Erdogan’s Plans to Protect Deposits
The Turkish lira surged from record lows on Tuesday after President Tayyip Erdogan introduced new government measures to protect local currency deposits from severe market fluctuations.
Erdogan’s announcement pushed the lira up at a daily high of 11.09 against the US dollar, after the currency posted its largest intra-day rally of 25% and hit an all-time low of 18.36 against the greenback on Monday.
Wednesday, Dec. 22: GameStop Set to Reveal NFT Marketplace Launch Date
GameStop Corp. has signaled interest in entering the nun-fungible token (NFT) space via its own NFT marketplace, which would grant its users access to gaming NFTs that can be traded on well-known platforms.
The US gaming company has yet to reveal an official launch date for its NFT marketplace, although its website posted an open invitation for individuals interested in being part of their NFT team, suggesting that the marketplace is already being developed.
Thursday, Dec. 23: Asian, European Stocks Rise as Omicron Fears Ease
A worldwide rally in the stock markets continued on Thursday, while the dollar weakened, as investors cheered the news of the COVID-19 Omicron variant being less dangerous than initially believed and improved consumer confidence in the US.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed for the third straight day at 0.80%, and the Nikkei 225 was up 0.83%, while Euro Stoxx 50 futures gained 0.66% and the FTSE futures rose 0.11%.
