E*TRADE Generation Trader - Studios That Won Big at Oscars
In this episode of Generation Trader, Cheddar Anchors Brad Smith and Hope King look at which movie studios came out on top at the 90th annual Academy Awards.
Fox Searchlight's "Shape of Water" earned Oscars for production design, original score, best director, and best picture. The hit movie has generated more than $57 million at the box office in the U.S., becoming the highest-grossing best picture winner in five years. Shares of 21st Century Fox, the studio's owner, are relatively flat over the past month but up about one percent Monday.
Fox Searchlight is one of the assets Disney is looking to acquire from 21st Century Fox in a $66 billion deal still pending regulatory approval.
Warner Brothers won five Oscars in total for its hits "Dunkirk" and "Blade Runner 2049." Shares of its parent company, Time Warner, are down about 3 percent over the past month.
Netflix won its first feature film Oscar for its documentary "Icarus." This comes amid news that the streaming service plans to create 700 original shows and movies this year, with a budget of $8 billion for original content. Netflix is having a strong month in the market.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
