Why it matters: The Chinese market is as crucial to U.S. film studios— 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Disney, Sony pictures, etc. — as it is to any other U.S. industry. China is projected to have the world's biggest moviegoing audience by 2020, according a PricewaterhouseCoopers study.
Excessive rain could significantly reduce the number of soybean acres planted this year, following an extremely low planting of corn acres this year, reports Bloomberg.
Why it matters: Farmers have long been struggling since President Trump initiated a trade war with China, which is the world's largest soybean purchaser. Soybean prices are at a 10-year low.
More than 600 U.S. companies and industry trade associations — including Walmart, Costco, Target and Foot Locker — wrote to President Trump on Thursday, copying senior members of his Cabinet to urge them to relent on the trade battle with China.
What they're saying: "Broadly applied tariffs are not an effective tool to change China’s unfair trade practices," the group said in the letter, which was backed by the National Retail Federation's anti-tariff lobbying campaign Tariffs Hurt the Heartland. "Tariffs are taxes paid directly by U.S. companies, including those listed below—not China."
In the absence of strong balance sheets or strong profits, the U.S. stock market is lavishing dollars on any new company that can put together a plausible theory of future success.
What's happening: The 2019 FOMO market may not have been willing to look past Uber or Lyft's $1 billion a year in losses — at least on IPO day— but the unbridled enthusiasm for companies like Beyond Meat, Shockwave Medical and Zoom show investors are desperately seeking a winner and they're willing to pay top dollar to find one.
Two of the great living campaign talkers, David Axelrod and Mike Murphy, team up for a "Hacks on Tap" podcast from Cadence13, taking listeners "deep inside the top level of American politics."
What to expect: The vibe is a bar full of campaign reporters, where one can pull up a stool to listen to two guys who have been in it, but now aren't tied to cable news cycles.
During a Fox News Town Hall, 2020 presidential candidate Julián Castro on Thursday evening said his own Hatch Act violation in 2016 differed from those of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway because he recognized what he did wrong and did not repeat the mistake.
"I don't think we are going to find anybody either in this race or in our homes and community that has never made mistakes. The true test of a leader is what do you do when you make that mistake. Are you big enough to own up to it, and make sure you correct what you do in the future? Or do you basically do what [Conway] did, which is to say 'no, I'm bigger than that.'"
— Julián Castro during Thursday evening's Fox News Town Hall
