Disney shares fall following softer-than-expected ‘Avatar’ opening weekend (2 min read)
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Shares of Disney dropped 4% on Monday and reached a 52-week low after a weaker than expected opening box office for the Avatar sequel movie. The domestic box office during the opening weekend was lower than the analysts' estimates and Disney's own forecast. However, box office analysts believe that it is still too early to be a concern yet. The film was anticipated to be a win for Disney after months of criticism over the company’s poor performance.

EV maker Lucid closes $1.5 billion raise (1 min read)
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Lucid announced on Monday that it has raised $1.5 billion and majority of it was through a private sale of additional shares to an affiliate of its largest investor, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. It was structured to keep the Saudi public wealth fund’s stake in Lucid at about 62%. Lucid plans to use the proceeds to further strengthen its balance sheet and liquidity position. Lucid stocks rose about 5% in the extended trading after the news.

Will a Santa Claus Rally come to Wall Street this year? (3 min read)
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Many investors are not expecting a Santa Claus rally to come this year amid ongoing inflationary pressures, rising rates, and recession fear. Santa Claus rally is a phenomenon where the market yields positive returns in the end of December into the new year. Research shows that it's 77.9% more likely to gain positive momentum during this period than any others. Some analysts said the latest selloff may lead to a small rally at the end of the year which falls into the Santa Claus window.

Millionaire investors haven’t been this bearish since 2008 (3 min read)
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According to CNBC’s recent millionaire survey, 56% of millionaire investors expect the S&P 500 to fall another 10% next year and nearly a third anticipate a decline of 15% or more. It’s the most pessimistic from this group since the financial crisis in 2008. Most are staying in cash and expect overall portfolio returns less than 4% in 2023. However, the gloomy outlook was mostly from the baby boomers as 81% of the millennials in the survey actually see their assets higher by the end of next year.

Biotech May Offer Compelling Value (4 min read)
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The iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB) is the largest US-listed biotech ETF. Despite being 13% lower this year, it is still outperforming the S&P 500 that has dropped about 17%. Given the strong fundamentals supporting health care and innovation that improve medical technology, the biotech sector and IBB may have a lot more room to run in 2023. More detailed analysis on this sector and IBB is available in the article.

JPMorgan Converting Another $2 Billion of Mutual Funds to ETFs (2 min read)
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JPMorgan is converting another four mutual funds with $2 billion of assets under management collectively into ETFs. This is JPMorgan’s second big conversion this year and it will take their total ETF assets to $81 billion across 46 funds. ETFs have been steadily gaining market shares as more and more large mutual funds are converting. Other recent issuers that converted their mutual funds include Fidelity, Kovitz Investment Group and Dimensional Fund Advisors.

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Thomas

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