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Why Disney+ is the only service that can rival Netflix

The streaming wars are going to end in a two-horse race between Netflix and Disney+.

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  Stock market news: November 18, 2019

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  Disney+ is so hot right now that it's helping this toymaker's sales pop

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Emirates announces $16 bln Airbus order

In the battle for the biggest orders, it was first strike to Airbus At the Dubai Air Show on Monday ... Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum is CEO of host airline Emirates. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMIRATES CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AHMED BIN SAEED AL MAKTOUM, SAYING: "Emirates will sign a purchase agreement for 50 Airbus XWBs today. This firm order worth 16 billion dollars at the list price." Emirates had been keeping around 30 billion dollars of Airbus and Boeing orders on ice .... Amid complaints over manufacturing delays and performance issues. It expects delivery of a first batch of this A350 order in May 2023. As for Boeing: Emirates wants to reduce the scale of a 150-strong 777 order after deliveries were pushed back. And is still negotiating over 40 787 Dreamliners. Boeing has its mind too on the 737 Max - grounded now for eight months after two fatal crashes. The US planemaker moved over the weekend to ease tensions with regulators over just how fast it should return to service. Stanley Deal is head of its Commercial Airplanes division. (SOUNDBITE)(English) BOEING COMMERCIAL AIRPLANES CHIEF EXECUTIVE, STANLEY DEAL, SAYING: "I want to emphasise right up front that the number one goal here is safely returning, and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and the regulators around the globe will pace the schedule." Despite an uncertain backdrop for the industry - and for the region ... Plenty of other business is being done. Including, for Airbus, a 120-strong order for A320neo-family jets from Air Arabia ... At around 14 billion dollars, also confirmed on Monday.

Exxon Says N.Y. Used Fraud Claims to Score Political Points

(Bloomberg) -- You’d expect most companies accused of a longstanding fraudulent scheme to be thrilled if the government dropped those claims against them. Not so for Exxon Mobil Corp. -- at least not today.The energy giant unleashed a torrent of criticism against New York Attorney General Letitia James in court filings Monday, more than a week after the state sought to drop two out of four claims on the last day of a civil trial that has yet to be decided by the judge. Exxon says the government couldn’t prove the fraud claims and only made them “to score headlines and political points.”New York had used the now-abandoned claims to allege Exxon intentionally misled investors for years about the company’s use of “proxy costs” to account for the risks of future climate-change regulations on its business, and that investors had relied on those false statements when buying Exxon stock.New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager, who oversaw 11 days of testimony that ended Nov. 7, should block the attempt to drop the two claims and instead rule in favor of Exxon for the entire case to finally “set the record straight” after four years of disparaging comments from the state, the company said in the filing.The attorney general “directly and repeatedly impugned the corporate reputation of Exxon Mobil and the personal reputations of its employees,” whose names were dragged “through the mud,” the company said. The state “cannot now erase these past four years because its fraud theory was completely debunked at trial,” Exxon said.New York’s remaining allegation is that Exxon violated the state’s Martin Act, an anti-fraud securities law, by issuing materially misleading statements about proxy costs. Under that narrower claim, the state doesn’t need to prove intent or show that investors actually relied on the information.Read More: Exxon Climate Plan Wasn’t Fake, Tillerson Says In N.Y. TrialJames’s office declined to comment on Exxon’s filing or explain why the state wanted to drop two fraud allegations.In the state’s post-trial court filing on Monday, the attorney general argued that even without the fraud claims there is sufficient evidence that Exxon misled investors for years by issuing confusing and contradictory information about its carbon metrics. New York claims Exxon said publicly it was using a conservative proxy cost to appease investors while a lower figure was frequently used to make internal decisions on projects like the oil sands in Alberta, Canada.Exxon contends that New York’s diminished case is a far cry from what the state has been saying publicly since New York began investigating in 2015 until the end of the trial. New York had claimed that Exxon’s proxy costs were a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” that was “sanctioned at the highest levels of the company,” court records show.Former Exxon Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson faced years of particularly harsh allegations by the state, which accused him of knowingly spearheading the scheme and trying to cover it up. On the witness stand, he denied the claim and said the case was unfair to the company.In its Monday filing, New York said Exxon’s alleged misstatements were repeated and persistent. But the government didn’t attempt to explain its decision to abandon the two fraud claims.“Climate change regulatory risk is a critical risk in the oil and gas industry, and as a consequence, Exxon’s misleading statements about its management of that risk are clearly material to investors,” the AG said.(Updates with James’s office declining to comment)To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve StrothFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Boeing to give Southwest board 737 MAX update this week

Boeing Co this week will present to the board of its largest 737 MAX customer, Southwest Airlines Co , an overview of its plans to return the grounded jet to service, a spokesman for the airline said on Monday. The meeting on Wednesday and Thursday comes after Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said last month that the airline could look next year at diversifying its fleet beyond Boeing 737 aircraft. Budget-friendly Southwest has structured its business model around flying only 737 aircraft for the past 50 years and bet its entire growth strategy on the 737 MAX, the latest iteration of Boeing's narrowbody workhorse.

3 Dow Stocks for Dividend Investors to Buy as Stock Market Keeps Climbing

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Lawsuit against Boeing seeks to hold board liable for 737 MAX problems

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge facing Boeing over the 737 MAX crash in Indonesia in October 2018 that killed all 189 passengers and crew and another in Ethiopia that killed all 157 people in March. The 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since the Ethiopian crash as Boeing seeks regulatory approval for updates to software believed to have played a role in both crashes.

Target Q3 Earnings on Deck: Will Report Send TGT Stock to New Highs?

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What Canadian Stockholders Need to Know About the Streaming Wars

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Boeing Directors Sued Over Missed Warning Signs on 737 Max 8

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. directors were careless in their oversight of the flawed 737 Max 8 airliner and failed to react promptly after two crashes killed more than 300 people, according to a shareholder lawsuit seeking to hold company board members accountable.The directors missed repeated red flags during development of the 737 Max’s automated flight-control systems and then waited months to investigate the role of design flaws in a fatal Lion Air crash late last year in Indonesia, according the suit filed Monday in Delaware Chancery Court by the Kirby Family Partnership LP. In March, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashed in Africa.In its rush to get the 737 Max to market, Boeing didn’t property test the new system or adequately train pilots, the lawsuit alleges. Along with the subsequent grounding of all 737 Max aircraft, the board’s actions hurt the company “through loss of credibility in the marketplace, a damaged reputation and billions in potential business costs and liability,” according to Kirby, which says it has owned Boeing shares since 2018.While Boeing already faces dozens of claims from victims’ families, the Delaware suit may be the first to target directors for their role in the controversy over the crashes.Most of the lawsuits by family members -- for the October 2018 Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines crash -- have been consolidated in federal court in Chicago. The parents of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old American aboard the Ethiopian Air flight, sued in April accusing Boeing of rushing the airliner to market while hiding flight-control defects.Read More: When Will Boeing 737 Max Fly Again and More QuestionsPeter Pedraza, a Boeing spokesman, declined to comment on the suit. The company is seeking to correct flight-control flaws and get the 737 Max back in operation.Regulators grounded the plane globally in March after the second of two fatal crashes. The groundings and the failure to get many new orders for new planes has cut at least $225 million from the airline’s operating income and caused tens of thousands of flight cancellations.The company also has been sued by the union for Southwest Airlines Co.’s pilots, who are seeking lost pay due to the 737 Max’s grounding. Southwest is the biggest operator of such planes.The case is Kirby Family Partnership LP v. Dennis Muilenburg, 2019-0907, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington)(Updates with company comment in sixth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware at jfeeley@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve StrothFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Airplanes Aren’t Selling Like They Used To

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Airplanes just aren’t selling like they used to.Monday marked the second day of the Dubai Air Show, and while there was the usual smattering of headlines with big-dollar figures, there was also fresh evidence that the robust aerospace cycle that’s propelled the industry’s stocks to new highs is getting long in the tooth. Carriers including Emirates and Etihad Airways rejiggered orders at the Air Show as they sought to adapt to a global growth slowdown and weaker demand for travel in the Middle East amid stubbornly low oil prices. This follows similar rethinks at British Airways-parent IAG SA and Deutsche Lufthansa AG earlier this month, with both carriers seemingly pushing out or putting on hold orders for Boeing Co.’s 777X wide-body model. The general takeaway is that the world doesn’t need as many planes right now as airlines might have thought just a few years ago, especially when it comes to the biggest jets used for long-distance international flights. The 777X in particular appears to be in trouble, with launch customer Emirates also reportedly contemplating cutting or delaying its order for 150 of the jets, perhaps in part by swapping in some of the smaller 787 Dreamliners. The Middle East is one of the more attractive markets for the 777 model, which is too big to fly in many other regions. So if airlines there are balking, then production rates may need to come down. Complicating things is a delay in the first deliveries of the 777X until 2021 due to durability issues with a General Electric Co. jet engine. Emirates chief Tim Clark has made it clear he’s fed up with a pattern of delayed rollouts, or worse, post-delivery glitches that force costly groundings, and the delay could factor into any decision. Stanley Deal, who took over as head of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division in October following the ouster of Kevin McAllister, told reporters over the weekend that the company was still in talks with Emirates on the 777X and a still yet-to-be-confirmed order for 40 Dreamliners. “Long term, the 777X’s value remains intact,” Deal said.Boeing has also trimmed its production targets for the Dreamliner after expected orders from China failed to materialize. Etihad Airways said at the Dubai Air Show that it will take 20 fewer Dreamliners over the next four years than originally planned as it grapples with eye-popping losses. Airbus SE models weren’t spared from weakening demand, either. Emirates finalized a $16 billion order for 50 Airbus A350 widebody jets — more than it had committed to in February — but appears to have backed away from an earlier commitment to buy 40 A330neos as well, meaning the total value of the deal before customary discounts is less than originally outlined.The news was better in the narrow-body market. Air Arabia inked a firm order for 120 of Airbus’s A320-model jets. Even Boeing’s troubled 737 Max got some love, with Turkish holiday carrier SunExpress exercising an option to add 10 more of the jets to its fleet. Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd. may also seize on the dearth of Max orders as an opportunity to pick up some of the jets at a discount as it contemplates a new hub in the Middle East. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh wouldn’t rule out signing a deal at the air show, although the size and ultimate timing remain up in the air. Even so, the early returns on the Air Show would seem to be at odds with Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury’s  comments last week that aviation demand continues to move “up and up.” Global passenger traffic is indeed still growing, but at a much lower rate than over the past few years. And that matters, because aviation stocks aren’t cheap right now. The SPDR S&P Aerospace and Defense ETF is up 42% so far this year, well outpacing the broader S&P 500 benchmark. The high valuations for aerospace stocks can hold to the extent margins are still on an uptrend and the rebound investors are positioning for in the manufacturing industry plays out, Denise Chisholm, Fidelity’s head of sector strategy, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. At least some airlines, though, are choosing to plan more conservatively.To contact the author of this story: Brooke Sutherland at bsutherland7@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brooke Sutherland is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

When John Legere Leaves, Say Goodbye to the Old T-Mobile

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- I’m not sure which is the bigger question: What is T-Mobile US Inc. without John Legere? Or, who is John Legere without T-Mobile?“I own no other clothing,” Legere joked during a conference call Monday morning, after the wireless carrier announced that its magenta-festooned CEO will be stepping down soon. Legere’s last day will be April 30, capping a remarkably successful seven-year run during which he took T-Mobile from a distant last place among the top U.S. carriers and turned it into the fastest-growing member of the industry. He will be replaced by Mike Sievert, who is currently president and chief operating officer.Make no mistake, the CEO transition will usher in a new T-Mobile. That’s not because the visions of the two men are so different — they aren’t, and Legere has been grooming Sievert, 50, for quite some time. But T-Mobile is no longer the industry upstart, and Legere’s departure suggests that he feels his work there is almost done. The last step is to complete the acquisition of Sprint Corp., which is being held up by a group of state attorneys general rightly concerned about the potential harm the transaction may cause consumers.Legere, 61, made clear that he isn’t retiring — nor is he turning his “Slow Cooker Sunday” Facebook Live series into a full-time gig. While he said the rumors of him joining WeWork aren’t true, he has fielded a “tremendous amount” of interest from companies seeking the expertise he’s demonstrated at turning around a troubled business and generating broad enthusiasm for a brand. “I’ve got 30 or 40 years and five or six good acts left in me,” Legere, the class clown of corporate events, said on Monday’s call. When Legere joined T-Mobile in 2012, the brand was in disrepair and customers were fleeing. It looked as if the wireless carrier might never be able to catch up to Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. or Sprint. But Legere transformed T-Mobile into a self-marketing powerhouse, with he and the rest of the management team shamelessly adopting new looks as walking billboards for the company. And it worked. More important, investments in the network and novel moves to simplify customer bills altered T-Mobile’s perception from one of a budget operator of last resort to a company that’s driving industry innovation. That’s earned it customer loyalty, as evidenced by having the lowest rate of churn — or customer defections — among its peers. T-Mobile’s stock has also left the others in the dust:Over the years, Legere’s style has not only included a closet’s worth of Superman-esque T-shirts adorned with a giant letter T, but also sports coats, sneakers, a leather jacket, a chef’s hat, a sports jersey and anything that could be made hot pink or fit the company’s logo. He has 6.5 million Twitter followers — almost as many as Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian family — and is known to respond directly to them, even occasionally dropping into calls to the customer service line. It was all part of his effort to shake up an industry that was going the way of cable-TV, with subscribers irritated by steep, overly complex monthly bills. “We saw an opportunity to disrupt a stupid, broken, arrogant industry,” a typically off-the-cuff Legere said on Monday’s call. “And T-Mobile is far from done,” he added. Though that may be for better or worse. Should the Sprint deal survive or avert the trial that’s set to begin Dec. 9, T-Mobile will gain newfound pricing power. Legere and Sievert have promised that the combined company won’t exploit this, saying that the combination instead allows them to “supercharge” what’s known as T-Mobile’s Un-carrier strategy. But the logic doesn’t quite follow. There’s little reason to believe a merger that facilitates higher prices and better profit margins wouldn’t result in exactly that, and the goodwill Legere has built up with regulators and consumers isn’t insurance enough against this scenario. Fierce competition between T-Mobile and Sprint the last few years is what benefited consumers and forced the industry to do things like offer unlimited data plans. If Sprint gets swallowed, the marketplace will be narrowed to just Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.(1)Sievert is a fine choice as CEO. But the reality is that the company he’s inheriting is different from the one Legere joined, and the days of T-Mobile’s incredible rapid growth will fade into the past, and there will be a natural shift to take advantage of its enhanced market power. So when Sievert said on Monday’s call that after the Sprint deal closes, “customers are going to the be winners,” I wouldn’t count on it. (1) Regulators have mandated that T-Mobile unload some assets to Dish Network Corp., helping set up the satellite-TV provider as a new entrant to the wireless market. But Dish is years and multiple billions of dollars away from becoming a formidable rival that can fill the hole Sprint will leave behind. It’s a weak concession that Legere was more than happy to accept.To contact the author of this story: Tara Lachapelle at tlachapelle@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tara Lachapelle is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of entertainment and telecommunications, as well as broader deals. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Airbus dominates second day of Dubai show as Boeing wins MAX order

Gulf airlines Emirates and Air Arabia spent a combined $30 billion at list prices on Airbus jetliners as the Dubai Airshow burst into life on Monday, while Boeing won a symbolic first official order for the 737 MAX since its grounding in March. Emirates threw its weight behind the Airbus A350 with an expanded order for 50 jets worth $16 billion, but shelved plans to order the slightly smaller A330neo as the Middle East’s largest carrier embarked on a more diversified fleet structure. The firm order, signed in front of reporters on day two of the Nov 17-21 show, drew a line under the A380 superjumbo, the world's largest airliner which Airbus had decided earlier this year to close, prompting Emirates to order mid-sized planes.

UPDATE 5-Shooting in Walmart parking lot leaves three dead in Oklahoma

Three people died in a shooting outside a Walmart store in Oklahoma on Monday morning, law enforcement officials said, the third fatal shooting at the retailer in five months and the latest in a string of gun violence across the United States. Video of the scene showed heavy police presence around a car riddled with bullet holes in the Walmart parking lot in Duncan, Oklahoma. The bodies of one woman and one man were found inside the car, with another dead man found outside the car, the Duncan Police Department said on Facebook.

Airbus pips Boeing to $14 bilion Air Arabia jet order

Airbus clinched a $14 billion (£11 billion) order from Air Arabia for 120 A320 jets, beating U.S. rival Boeing Co after more than a year of talks between the budget carrier and the planemakers. The order announced at the biennial Dubai Air Show would more than double Sharjah-based Air Arabia's fleet of 55 narrowbody aircraft. The United Arab Emirates' only listed airline wants to further expand its operations beyond the Middle East.

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