This is not what anyone expected. Taken 3 was supposed to follow a simple formula. Bad guys kidnap someone Liam Neeson cares about, shuffle her (and it’s always a her) off to a some exotic locale, and then Neeson kicks butt to get her back. Not this time around. There is no kidnapping. The movie is set in Los Angeles. The only thing that remains is Neeson kicking butt. And that doesn’t seem to be enough for most critics. The Los Angeles Times’ Betsy Sharkey calls Taken 3 “unintentionally hilarious,” Vulture.com’s Bilge Ebiri says “the concept is lame,” and Rolling Stones’ Peter Travers simply warns: “This thing sucks!” Still, BoxOfficeMojo predicts Taken 3 will take in about $28 million, good enough to top the box office.
After last year’s 11% rise in the S&P 500, which followed 2013′s 32% return, investors might have been expecting a solid start to the year. Now quite. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% to 2,044.81 this week, with no single-day move smaller than 0.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, fell 0.5% to 17,737.37, the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.5% to 4,704.07, and the small-company Russell 2000 finished off 1.1% at 1,185.68.
About what you would expect from a week that saw the eurozone sink into deflation, the Federal Reserve turn a blind eye towards the lack of inflation in the U.S., and a jobs report that was strong across the board except for the lack of wage growth. Oh, and oil dropped below $50. Cirrus Research’s Satya Pradhuman and Mitchell Hew consider the impact of falling oil prices on the market:
The fallout in crude, while generally positive, indirectly pressures Europe as the Russian economy and the Rubble contracts. A more direct impact of the decline in crude relates to a fallout in demand for energy related projects and capital. A closer look at the High Yield market indicates that quality spreads (the difference between High Yield market and the corresponding Treasury level) have widened out in the past six months. This is partly due to the rally in the Treasury market as global investors have flocked to the US. Importantly, Energy related funding has slowed to a trickle as credit spreads have doubled, from 346 to 753 basis points, between June and December. Ultimately, a tightening of investment capital limits growth and eventually caps valuation levels. Until we can witness a stabilization of the recent back-up in quality spreads, the focus on higher quality will likely be beneficial.
Credit Suisse strategists Lori Calvasina and think stocks look increasingly risky:
Although small caps no longer look overvalued vs. large cap, the two size segments have something very important in common. Both, as well as mid-caps, look extremely expensive in absolute terms. While expensive valuations up and down the market cap spectrum are no guarantee that US equities will fall in the year ahead, the extreme readings that we see on our absolute valuation models do indicate to us that downside risks in all size segments of US equities have risen, and that US stocks have become much more vulnerable to negative catalysts.
Sounds like a bad sequel.
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