Sales & Marketing news

• The new 'Star Wars' movies have already made more than the $4 billion Disney paid for the franchise in 2012 (DIS)

  29-12-2017 17:42 via feedproxy.google.com
  With "The Last Jedi" making over $900 million worldwide at the box office, Disney-owned "Star Wars" movies have combined to earn over $4.5 billion.
  That's how much Disney paid for Lucasfilm, the company that makes the "Star Wars" movies, in 2012.In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion and took full control of the "Star Wars" empire. 
  Five years later, the studio has made that amount back from just the ticket sales from the new "Star Wars" films.
  With the saga's lastest movie, "Th
  
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• The looming threat from supercorporations like Amazon is helping spur a new wave of megadeals (AVGO, QCOM, ROK, EMR)

  29-12-2017 17:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  Mergers-and-acquisitions transactions worth over $10 billion are surging back after a largely dormant first half of the year.
  Wall Street bankers say an improving global economy and confidence in the regulatory environment are playing a role.The looming threat of supercorporations like Amazon has many large companies evaluating whether they can be an endgame winner — and whether they need to strike a deal to get there.
  On Thursday, Emerson Electric upped its takeover bid for Rockwell Autom
  
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• The secret to how Tesla gets its cars to look absolutely fantastic (TSLA)

  29-12-2017 16:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  Designer Franz von Holzhausen had an impressive resume before joining Tesla.
  But the combination of his frustration with the traditional auto industry and Elon Musk's distinctive ideas about how to solve problems has taken his work to a new level.
  He's followed an unlikely path to becoming the most influential car designer of his generation.Before Franz von Holzhausen signed on with what was then called Tesla Motors in 2008, he was on his way to being a member of the automotive de
  
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• The stock market is on the verge of making history

  29-12-2017 15:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  The S&P 500 is set to finish 2017 with 12 months of gains. 
  That's never happened before. 
  Earnings growth was strong, all 45 economies under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were expanding, and investors started to price in the impact of the new tax law. 
  Some analysts expect 2018 to be more volatile. 
   
  What a year.
  For the first time ever, the S&P 500 is set to end every single month of a calendar year with a gain.
  It came very
  
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• ETHEREUM FOUNDER: 'I won't stop or slow working on crypto just because price memes and stupid jokes exist'

  29-12-2017 14:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, clarified a tweet in which he threatened to leave crypto if communities in the space didn't grow up.
  He said he would stay so long as "there's also real social value that the ecosystem is working towards."Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has clarified a tweet from Wednesday in which he threatened to leave crypto if communities in the space didn't grow up.
  Originally, he said he would leave crypto if all people in the space did was post memes abo
  
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• Ripple briefly overtakes Ethereum as the No. 2 crypto

  29-12-2017 13:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  Ripple's XRP briefly passed Ethereum as the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap on Friday.
  XRP's market cap reached $73.65 billion before the digital coin pared its gains.
  XRP has gained more than 5,000% in 2017.
   
  A red-hot close to 2017 briefly caused Ripple's XRP to overtake Ethereum as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
  Ripple, which focuses on bank transfers, sported gains of more than 40% at one point on Friday, propelling it to a record high and a market cap of
  
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• 10 things you need to know before the opening bell (SPY, SPX, QQQ, DIA, AAPL)

  29-12-2017 12:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  Here is what you need to know.
  The S&P 500 looks to close out 2017 with a bang. The benchmark index is on track to open up 0.27% near 2,695. It's gained about 20% this year.
  Short volatility was the stock market's "trade of the year." Two exchange-traded products used to short volatility have surged almost 200% in 2017, dwarfing returns for even the best-performing stocks in major indexes.
  Traders are betting billions the hottest stocks of 2017 will get crushed next year. Facebook, Apple, Ne
  
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• The best stock market trade of 2017 was one that experts hate

  29-12-2017 12:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  Two exchange-traded products used to short volatility have surged almost 200% in 2017, dwarfing returns for even the best-performing stocks in major indexes.
  Shorting volatility is an activity that's been met with great consternation from many market experts.The best stock market trade of 2017 doesn't involve a specific stock or sector. It instead relates to price fluctuations in equities — or in this case, the lack thereof.
  Two exchange-traded products betting against US stock volatility
  
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• Apple's battery apology could be its most important ever (AAPL)

  29-12-2017 01:37 via feedproxy.google.com
  Apple apologized on Thursday for slowing down iPhones with older batteries. 
  The apology is extraordinary: Apple isn't apologizing for a hardware glitch or a software error; it's apologizing for a choice it consciously made.
  Apple is adding new features to iOS to tell if your battery is healthy, which it should have had since the beginning.It might be the most far-reaching apology Apple has had to make, and could result in a new way for the company to do business.Apple's apology on Thursda
  
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• Using social effectively was a focus in 2017

  29-12-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  BEST OF 2017: How to get the best out of social media was an ongoing concern for many WARC subscribers over the past year, although the continuing use of email and SMS, along with the rise of messaging apps, means that ‘dark social’...
  
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• The future of strategy

  29-12-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  BEST OF 2017: The growing complexity of the media and marketing landscape is making the agency planner more influential according to WARC report published earlier this year.
  
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• Millennials remain a focus

  29-12-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  BEST OF 2017: Marketers are slowly turning their attention towards Generation Z but in 2017 WARC subscribers were largely focused on their older brethren, Millennials.The most read article during the year was a WARC Best Practice paper:
  
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