Viewers approve of Trump's first State of the Union address - CBS News poll
By Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus, Kabir Khanna and Anthony Salvanto
Views of the speech
Three in four Americans who tuned in to President Trump's State of the Union address tonight approved of the speech he gave. Just a quarter disapproved.
How did the speech make you feel?
Eight in 10 Americans who watched tonight felt that the president was trying to unite the country, rather than divide it. Two-thirds said the speech made them feel proud, though just a third said it made them feel safer. Fewer said the speech made them feel angry or scared.Party Identification
But as is often the case in State of the Union addresses, the people who watched tonight's speech leaned more towards the president's own party, at least compared to Americans overall. In the latest CBS national poll released earlier this month, 24 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. Among those who watched tonight's address, that percentage was 42 percent, bolstering the overall approval of the address.
After hearing his State of the Union address, most viewers think the policies they heard tonight would help them personally, though Democrats disagree.
Policies you heard in the speech
On some of the specific issues the President touched upon, most viewers had a favorable opinion of what Mr. Trump had to say about the nation's infrastructure, immigration, and national security.Credit for the economy
And after hearing him speak tonight, 54 percent of speech watchers give him a lot of credit for the current state of the nation's economy, up from 51 percent before they watched the State of the Union.
This CBS News 2018 survey is based on 1,178 interviews conducted on the internet of U.S. residents who watched the State of the Union Address. Panelists were previously interviewed on January 29-30, 2018 to indicate whether they planned to watch the address, and if they were willing to be re-interviewed after the address. Questions asked during this initial interview have the note "Asked before the SOTU address.'' The margin of error is +/- 3.1%.
How Overseas Film Sales Are Saving Hollywood!
That’s because as badly as so many franchise films and reboots have done in the world’s biggest cinema market, they’ve racked up solid ticket sales elsewhere. Theater-goers in America thought Paramount Pictures’ fifth “Transformers” was pretty much a yawner, but in China they liked it. And No. 6 is already in the works.
“Look at the casualties just this summer,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a Los Angeles-based analyst for ComScore Inc. “If they only had North America, it would be a monumental disaster for the studios.”
For now at least, the rest of the world -- China in particular -- is supporting Hollywood’s love affair with series, sequels and rehashes like “The Mummy,” Universal Pictures’ new take on a story that’s been told dozens of times. The risk is that sequel fatigue will set in overseas too. Chinese moviegoers are becoming more choosy, and the fastest-growing film market is slowing down. That’s a challenge for studios such as Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros., which plan and schedule movies years in advance.
Jonathan Papish, an analyst for China Film Insider, described as a “disaster” the $250 million that “Transformers: The Last Knight” is projected to record in the world’s most-populous country. The reason: the previous version from Viacom Inc.’s film division pulled in 17 percent more, “a worrisome sign for both Paramount and other Hollywood studios who have become far too complacent thinking that Chinese audiences will swallow whatever garbage they shove down their throats.”
Not every sequel or franchise entry has fallen flat in North America, of course. “Wonder Woman,” Warner Bros.’ fourth episode in the DC Extended Universe series, has taken in $346 million domestically and is one of the year’s top films. Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” topped the box office for two weeks and has taken in $383 million domestically.
And there are some big-hitters coming. Sony Corp.’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is expected to take in $301 million in North America after its release this weekend, according to BoxOfficePro.com.
“War for Planet of the Apes,” out July 14 from 21st Century Fox Inc., could grab $165 million.
But the second-quarter domestic box office ended down 3.6 percent from a year ago at $2.7 billion, Barton Crockett, an analyst at FBR & Co., said in a note. He blamed disappointing sequels; even with a better-than-expected “Wonder Woman,” he predicts a 15 percent decline for the third quarter.
Chinese box-office sales fell in June, as local movies as well as Hollywood imports failed to meet expectations. This month, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC pushed back its forecast for China’s movie market to overtake the U.S. to 2021 from 2017.
This weekend, Universal’s “Despicable Me 3” will test the Chinese market, after opening in first place in 44 out of 46 countries, according to data from the film division of Comcast Corp. A new installment in another Universal series, “The Fate of the Furious,” enjoyed strong demand in China, taking in $393 million there earlier this year.
Even with big budget films flopping at home, movies can earn money for years to come from digital downloads and sales to Netflix Inc. and other streaming sites and cable-television channels. The latest -- and last -- “Pirates of the Caribbean” may have missed expectations when it came out May 26, but it could end up generating a net profit of $219 million, according to an estimate from Wade Holden, analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence.
That hasn’t stopped some analysts from complaining that studios have focused too much on making big-budget features.
“There is an over reliance on sequels,” said Richard Greenfield, a media and technology analyst at BTIG LLC. The major studios “are so worried about investing in an unknown property that they are all just relying on sequels and hoping that sequels will save them.”
While Disney has had tremendous success, Greenfield said it’s not bullet-proof. “The danger is that investors are essentially assuming that a movie like ‘Star Wars’ will be successful forever.”
As much as any studio, Disney has tied its future to sequels and remakes. The company’s 2017 schedule includes eight films, of which six fit that profile, according to Box Office Mojo.
Disney said its strategy sets it apart from the competition -- in 2016 its film business had its most profitable year ever. Other studios trying to ape it have had less success. Sony, for example, tried and failed to refresh its 1984 hit “Ghostbusters” last year in the hope that it could spawn a new series.
In any event, many future slates are laden with new installments of existing worlds of characters. 21st Century Fox and Sony, which license Marvel characters, are planning more “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” chapters.
Disney has laid out several years worth of Marvel superhero offerings and at least a six-picture series of “Star Wars” movies. Meanwhile, the company is revisiting “Mary Poppins” and “Mulan.”
“Studios are rushing these sequels,” said Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. “If you want to get the domestic audience back, you’ve got to do something a little outside the box.”
U.S. Jobless Claims Plunge to Lowest Weekly Tally Since 1973
By Katia Dmitrieva
Highlights of Jobless Claims (Week Ended Jan. 13)
- Jobless claims decreased by 41k to 220k (est. 249k); lowest level since Feb. 1973, biggest drop since April 2009
- Continuing claims rose by 76k to 1.952m in week ended Jan. 6 (data reported with one-week lag)
- Four-week average of initial claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, fell to 244,500 from the prior week’s 250,750
Key Takeaways
The drop in claims shows that companies are increasingly holding on to their employees amid a shortage of skilled labor. Businesses are struggling to find workers to fill positions, particularly in manufacturing and construction, as cited in some anecdotes for the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book released Wednesday.The figures suggest the unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, already the lowest since 2000, could be poised to decline further. The latest week for claims includes the 12th of the month, which is the reference period for the Labor Department’s monthly employment surveys.
Caveats for the latest numbers include the fact that the week was sandwiched between two periods containing holidays, when data tend to be more volatile. In addition, more states than usual had estimated figures.
Other Details
- Prior week’s reading was unrevised at 261,000
- Unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits rose to 1.4 percent from 1.3 percent in previous week
- Claims were estimated for Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Puerto Rico, Virginia, Wyoming
- New York’s unadjusted claims fell by 26,190 to 23,171; California’s estimated, unadjusted claims rose by 11,994 to 59,284
Drinking tea makes people more creative!
Just half a cup was enough to inspire great ideas after a few minutes.
Volunteers who downed a brew were more imaginative in tests than those who drank water.
Tea contains caffeine and theanine, which improve mental speed, accuracy and focus.
But these take 30 to 60 minutes to kick in – long after these experiments were finished.
Researchers from Peking University, China, say this means tea must have a positive mental effect.
Getty - Contributor Students who drank tea were answering more questions than those who just drank water
Singer Mick Jagger, scientist Albert Einstein and author C. S. Lewis are all famous tea drinkers.
Study leader Yan Huang ran two 20-minute experiments on a total of 90 students.
Half of the students in each test drank up to one cup of tea, three minutes before the tasks began.
The other half drank water.
In the first test, they were asked to create an “attractive” construction out of building blocks.
And in the second, they had to come up with a “cool” name for a new noodle restaurant.
Entries were scored for innovativeness and playfulness by a separate group of students.
Getty - Contributor Tea contains caffiene and theanine which can improve mental speed
But the water drinkers only scored 6.03 points and 3.78 points, respectively.
Yan Huang said: “The current research demonstrates that drinking tea can improve creative performance with divergent thinking.
Dow breaks above 26,000 for the first time, Merck and UnitedHealth jump
U.S. stocks traded sharply higher as
investors chased a market breaking out on better-than-expected earnings
and rising economic optimism under President Donald Trump.
The Dow Jones industrial average broke above 26,000 for the first time earlier in the session. At 12:47 p.m. ET, the Dow traded 122 points higher, slightly below the milestone level. The 30-stock index was boosted by gains in UnitedHealth and Merck.
It took the Dow just 12 calendar days, or seven trading days, to move from 25,000 to 26,000, making it the fastest 1,000 move on record for the index. It first traded above 25,000 on Jan. 4.
The Dow Jones industrial average broke above 26,000 for the first time earlier in the session. At 12:47 p.m. ET, the Dow traded 122 points higher, slightly below the milestone level. The 30-stock index was boosted by gains in UnitedHealth and Merck.
It took the Dow just 12 calendar days, or seven trading days, to move from 25,000 to 26,000, making it the fastest 1,000 move on record for the index. It first traded above 25,000 on Jan. 4.
The S&P 500 gained 0.2 percent and briefly traded above 2,800 for the first time. Real estate and
health care were the best-performing sectors in the index. The Nasdaq composite advanced 0.2 percent and also hit a record.
"The boring stock market of 2017 has turned on the burners two weeks into the new year," said Frank Cappelleri, executive director at Instinet, noting the S&P 500 was on track to post its first monthly gain of more than 4 percent since March 2016.
"Regardless if the [S&P 500] finishes January with a 4% gain or not, this just tells us once again that strength does, in fact, beget more strength. It also means we shouldn't cast doubt on the uptrend simply because the advance has gained steam recently," Cappelleri said in a note.
UnitedHealth posted better-than-expected earnings and sales, sending the stock up 2.6 percent. Citigroup reported adjusted earnings that surpassed estimates, while revenue came in line with expectations. Citigroup shares climbed 0.7 percent.
Earnings season is off to a strong start thus far. Of the S&P 500 companies that had reported as of Friday, 69 percent have surpassed earnings-per-share estimates while 85 percent have beaten expectations on the top line, according to FactSet.
"It's all about earnings right now," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial. "Improvement in the quality of earnings and optimistic outlooks are driving this market higher. It's momentum feeding on itself."
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 2, 2017.
Equities are off to a strong start for the year, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite jumping at least 4.2 percent in 2018. A stronger U.S. economy, tax reform, and optimism maid the corporate earnings season have been key catalysts for the market.
"The current rally is broad based with nearly all areas in harmony with the primary trend. Typically at an important peak in the market the leadership begins to grow thin, which is opposite of what we are witnessing now," said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Baird, in a note. "This argues that any weakness that could develop will be limited in time and price."
The major averages closed at record highs on Friday. U.S. markets were closed on Monday because of the Martin Luther King holiday.
The euro, meanwhile, hovered near a three-year peak amid heightened expectations the European Central Bank may soon pare its monetary stimulus. The U.S. dollar had been showing some signs of weakness in recent sessions.
Elsewhere, Merck shares jumped 7 percent after announcing positive Phase 3 results for its Keytruda drug, which is aimed at treating cancer.
Matt Drudge: world's most powerful journalist
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Ten years ago, he was a reclusive, pasty-faced 31-year-old who, bashing away on his laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence when he threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency by breaking news of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist – though his detractors even deny that is his occupation - in the world.
Drudge is still an outsider, contemptuous of the cosy relationships and closed-door deals that keep the ordinary person from being privy to the secrets of the Establishment. He is the reason why people across the globe are now reading about Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan after he shattered a blackout agreed between Fleet Street and Buckingham Palace.
This week, he posted a photograph of Barack Obama dressed in the tribal garb of a Somali elder during a 2006 trip to Africa, claiming it had been emailed by a member of Hillary Clinton's campaign. It appeared to be a brazen attempt to fuel rumours that her rival was a dangerous Muslim.
Within minutes, the photograph was the talk of Washington news rooms and New York television studios. BlackBerry messages flew back and forth between reporters and political operatives. The story spread across the worldwide web as bloggers weighed in on a juicy item that was suddenly topping the news agenda.
Welcome to the world of the Drudge Report. A world in which the successor to Walter Cronkite and Bob Woodward is a loner with no university education or journalistic background. He is now surreptitiously courted by the media and political elites that once derided him but now fear he has the power to change the course of an American election.
The Lewinsky scandal and the 2008 presidential campaign are the bookends to what could be described as the Drudge decade. At the start, he was the antagonist who came from nowhere – Bill Clinton initially fumbled the site's name, calling it the Sludge Report. By the end, he had become Hillary Clinton's weapon of choice against Mr Obama.
Just as he revealed details of Bill Clinton's tawdry affair with Miss Lewinsky while "Newsweek" editors agonised over whether to publish the story, Drudge posted the news of Prince Harry's front-line service against the Taliban on-line without regard to any niceties. Within an hour, Buckingham Palace had lifted the embargo and Prince Harry was the lead item on CNN.
It all seems a long way from Matthew Nathan Drudge's days as a gifted but directionless schoolboy growing up in the Washington DC suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.
The son of divorced parents who lived with his mother, he would, he said later, wander past ABC News headquarters and "daydream" of being on the inside, "stare up at the Washington Post newsroom over on 15th Street, look up longingly, knowing I'd never get in".
After stints at a 7-Eleven store and at McDonald's, odd jobs as a telemarketer and New York grocery store assistant, he gravitated to Los Angeles in 1989, attracted by the intersection between media and celebrity that was to become the rich seam he mined to achieve his success.
He worked as a runner on the game show "The Price is Right" before landing a job at the gift shop at CBS Studios – a window into Hollywood – and rising to become its manager.
By 1994, his father Bob, a former therapist and social worker, was worried that the self-described "aimless teen" was becoming a directionless adult. He gave him a Packard-Bell computer in the hope that it might spur him on to achieve more.
The following year, Drudge the elder founded refdesk.com, a site that describes itself as indexing "quality, credible and timely resources that are free and family-friendly" and which Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State, uses as his home page.
Drudge the younger chose a different path. He threw his energies into producing an email newsletter filled with snippets of gossip and rambling steam-of-consciousness opinion. By 1996, he was focusing more on politics, charging an annual $10 fee to his subscribers – which grew from 1,000 to 85,000 between 1995 and 1997.
Today, the Drudge Report attracts more than 600 million visits a month. With an old-fashioned typeface, Drudge primarily links to stories, though he still breaks news using his trademark flashing siren over a banner headline.
So much internet traffic can be directed to an item linked to by Drudge that unprepared websites have been known to collapse under the strain.
For politicians, the effect is akin to a needle injecting information into the media bloodstream. A positive story can give a shot of adrenaline to a flagging campaign. More commonly, negative information can be like a dose of poison being administered.
It has been Republicans who have most assiduously courted Drudge, a conservative populist who passionately opposes abortion and despises taxes. Research directors of the Republican National Committee have made pilgrimages to Miami to pay homage to Drudge.
A 2005 dinner at the fashionable Miami steakhouse Forge in which Tim Griffin, the outgoing RNC research director, introduced his successor Matt Rhoades to Drudge is already the stuff of political lore. Rhoades went on to become communications supremo to Mitt Romney, whose opponents in the 2008 presidential race noted frequently that negative stories about them appeared regularly on Drudge.
American reporters from the mainstream outlets that often dismiss Drudge as a salacious rumour-monger often tip him off about their exclusives or even the stories their editors will not run.
One of the biggest surprises of the 2008 campaign has been the connection between the Drudge Report and the Clinton campaign, who has reportedly used the former Democratic party official Tracy Sefl as an emissary.
But the attempt to woo the man who came close to being her husband's nemesis appears to have backfired. "The Clinton campaign has clearly had an ability to move negative stuff about Edwards and Obama in a way that we did not have," said Joe Trippi, chief strategists to John Edwards, who recently dropped out of the 2008 race.
"They tried to take some of the tactics that had worked against them and use them for their own gain just when people were getting sick of the kind of politics that's about what's the next bucket of blood that's going to be dumped on Drudge."
Drudge revels in his notoriety, the opaqueness of his methods and his ability to cause trouble. The story about the Obama photograph led to widespread condemnation of the Clinton campaign – prompting some to wonder whether it had been deliberately placed to discredit her.
Alongside his Prince Harry story, Drudge had proudly highlighted the verdict from the veteran Left-winger Jon Snow of Channel 4 News: "I never thought I'd find myself saying thank God for Drudge."
Stocks finish at record highs, S&P 500 has best start to a year since 1987
by
Fred Imbert | @foimbert
U.S. equities rose to record highs on Tuesday as
investors remained optimistic about the market heading into the
corporate earnings season.
The S&P 500 hit a fresh all-time high, rising 0.1 percent to close at 2,751.29. The index is also enjoying its best start to a year since 1987. The S&P 500 is up 2.7 percent for the year, notching its biggest six-day gain to kick off a year since then.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 102.80 points to 25,385.80 as Boeing reached an all-time high. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.1 percent and closed at 7,163.58.
"It's been a great start to the year. The momentum we saw in 2017 carried over into this year," said Jim Davis, regional investment manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.
The S&P 500 hit a fresh all-time high, rising 0.1 percent to close at 2,751.29. The index is also enjoying its best start to a year since 1987. The S&P 500 is up 2.7 percent for the year, notching its biggest six-day gain to kick off a year since then.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 102.80 points to 25,385.80 as Boeing reached an all-time high. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.1 percent and closed at 7,163.58.
"It's been a great start to the year. The momentum we saw in 2017 carried over into this year," said Jim Davis, regional investment manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.
Financial giants BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo are among the companies set to report quarterly results later this week.
"Q4 is going to be fine," said Maris Ogg, president at Tower Bridge Advisors. "I think the most important thing is going to be getting information on the impact of the tax cuts company by company.
There's no reason that shouldn't be mostly positive." President Donald Trump signed a bill last month that cut the federal corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.
Some positive corporate news has already started to trickle down, giving the overall stock market a boost. On Tuesday, Target reported same-store sales growth of 3.4 percent for the holiday season, surpassing estimates. The stock climbed 2.9 percent.
Getty Images
Traders work on the floor of the New York
Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the closing bell, November 30, 2017 in New York
City. On Thursday afternoon, the Dow closed at over 24,000 points for
the first time in its history.
Stocks also followed international markets higher on Tuesday. The Japanese Nikkei 225 rose 0.6 percent after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly trimmed its long-dated government bonds purchases.
The move raised speculation that the central bank could start unwinding its stimulative policy this year. It could also signal the BOJ's confidence in the Japanese economy is growing.
The Japanese yen traded 0.5 percent higher against the dollar following the announcement.
European stocks also rose, with the Stoxx 600 index advancing 0.6 percent. The French CAC 40 index was among the best performers in Europe, closing 0.6 percent higher.
U.S. equities are off to a strong start for the year as the momentum seen in 2017 carried over into 2018. The major averages have reached fresh record highs in 2018 and have hit key milestones. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed above 25,000, 2,700 and 7,000, respectively, for the first time last week.
Shares of Under Armour fell 5.4 percent on Tuesday, after Susquehanna downgraded the athletics apparel to "negative" from "neutral," noting the Under Armour brand remains at risk.
PayPal's stock rose 0.2 percent after Cowen analyst George Mihalos upgraded the stock and hiked his price target. In a note to clients, Mihalos said he recognizes he has "come to the party well after the candles have been blown out."
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