• Reuters

    Markets in 2024: Wall Street's high-octane rally keeps investors captive to the US

    Markets that began the year with investors expecting a global stock rally to fizzle, swift U.S. interest rate cuts to boost Treasuries and soften the dollar and emerging market currencies to strengthen have firmly defied that consensus. That comes mostly thanks to a second year of huge gains for Wall Street stocks as artificial intelligence fever and robust economic growth sucked more global capital into U.S. assets and took the dollar up 7% against peers in 2024. U.S. exuberance rose after Donald Trump's Nov. 5 election win, as traders focused on the President-elect's plans for tax cuts and deregulation, with the surge in animal spirits propelling cryptocurrency bitcoin to a 128% annual gain.

  • Associated Press

    What to stream: 'Squid Game' returns, the movie 'Bird' and Mariah Carey teams up with the NFL

    The long-awaited second season of “Squid Game” on Netflix and singing superstar Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas TV special are some of the new television, films and music headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: the British coming-of-age tale “Bird” from British filmmaker Andrea Arnold and Mariah Carey's Christmas special ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers game. NEW MOVIES TO STREAM DEC. — British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (“Fish Tank”) made perhaps her most divisive movie yet with “Bird,” a coming-of-age tale about a 12-year-old named Bailey (Nykiya Adams) that come to MUBI on Monday.

  • Reuters

    Oil gains as cooling US inflation points to possible easing

    SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Monday as lower-than-expected U.S. inflation data revived hopes for further policy easing, although the outlook for a supply surplus next year weighed on the market. "Risk assets, including U.S. equity futures and crude oil, have started the week on a firmer footing," IG markets analyst Tony Sycamore said, adding that cooler inflation data helped alleviate concerns following the Federal Reserve's hawkish rate cut. "I think the U.S. Senate passing legislation to end the brief shutdown over the weekend has helped," he said.