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Joining the world’s most exclusive club — the top 1% — has arguably never looked more doable, but a lot depends on the country in which you’re trying to achieve that status.
That’s according to the 2024 Knight Frank Wealth Report, which lays out how many millions it takes for an individual to join the most-moneyed club across the world.
As exclusive as the one-percenter appellation may sound, it’s “actually easier to become a member of this particular club than it is to gain UHNWI status,” observes the Knight Frank report, released Wednesday.
Anyone who has achieved UHNWI status is an ultra-high-net-worth individual with net wealth of $30 million or more.
Define “easier,” right? The country with the highest barrier to 1% entry is Monaco, where more than $12.8 million is required to be part of that top-percentage-point category as of the end of 2023.
The five countries with the highest bars to entry are Monaco, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the U.S. and Singapore.
In the U.S., the threshold is $5.8 million. And for those seeking a fast track into the 1% club, and with unrestricted freedom to relocate, in China, at the bottom of that list of 17 countries, just over $1 million is required to qualify as a one-percenter, and, just ahead of it is Japan, where just under $2 million is needed.
Knight Frank, a global real-estate firm, said the number of UHNWI individuals globally rose by 4.2% to 626,619 from 601,300 a year earlier, which more than reversed a decline seen in 2022.
The report included an attitudes survey that showed how optimistic money managers were that their clients would amass more wealth in 2024. On a scale of 1 to 5, the Middle East came out on top, with North America lower down, according to this chart:
Looking across generations, the report found one group in particular was most optimistic about building their wealth — Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012, by the Pew Research Center’s reckoning), of whom 75% said they expected their wealth to increase in 2024. Boomers (born, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, between mid-1946 and mid-1964) were, among survey respondents, at the lower end, with Generation X (born from the end of the postwar baby boom through 1980) not far behind, at just over 50% each.
Read on: Retirement balances are at their highest in nearly two years, with 20% jump in 401(k) millionaires
Timothee Chalamet stars as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.”
Warner Bros. | Legendary Entertainment
LOS ANGELES — Movie theater operators are hoping that Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s “Dune: Part Two,” due out in theaters Friday, will be the much-needed oasis amid a drought of blockbuster content.
Since the start of the year, the domestic box office has tallied just $866.4 million in ticket sales through Sunday, a nearly 18% drop from the same period in 2023, according to data from Comscore. A boost at the beginning of the year could prove critical to a box office that’s still struggling to reclaim $10 billion in domestic annual ticket sales, a mark last seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The arrival of ‘Dune: Part Two’ is coming at a point where the industry is looking for that momentum igniting blockbuster,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
So far in 2024, no film has generated more than $100 million in receipts. While surprise hits such as Sony’s “Anyone But You” alongside Paramount’s “Mean Girls” and “Bob Marley: One Love” have helped fill cinemas, the box office had few blockbuster holdovers from the holidays and limited new offerings in the new year.
Last year, the first quarter was buoyed by $263 million in ticket sales from Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which hit theaters in December of the previous year. Similarly, 2022 had more than $200 million in residual sales from Sony and Marvel’s 2021 hit “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“We’re used to these peaks and valleys,” said Bill Barstow, who runs ACX Cinemas, a theater chain with six locations in five states. “And certainly, there’s no mystery to the last three years of the pandemic and then strikes and all the stuff that kind of kicks us. But then along comes something like ‘Dune.'”
Top 10 movies titles so far in 2024
- “Wonka” (Warner Bros.) — $81.3 million
- “Mean Girls” (Paramount) — $72.1 million
- “Bob Marley: One Love” (Paramount) — $71.1 million
- “Migration” (Universal) — $66.2 million
- “The Beekeeper” (Amazon MGM) — $63.1 million
- “Anyone But You” (Sony) — $62.1 million
- “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (Warner Bros.) — $47.6 million
- “Argylle” (Universal) — $41.6 million
- “Madame Web” (Sony) — $35.3 million
- “Night Swim” (Universal) — $31.8 million
Source: Comscore
“It’s been a long slog of a winter at the box office, unsurprisingly so after numerous strike-induced delays crushed an already underwhelming studio slate in recent months,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “‘Dune: Part Two’ represents the turn of the tide.”
While Warner Bros. is projecting a conservative $65 million debut for the much anticipated sci-fi sequel, box office analysts foresee a haul between $70 million and $80 million, especially as moviegoers are likely to gravitate toward premium large format screenings, which are pricier than regular tickets.
“We’ve had sold out ‘See It First’ showings in all of our IMAX locations and guest response is already extremely positive,” said Jeff Whipple, vice president of advertising, marketing and public relations at Larry H. Miller Megaplex Theatres, which operates 15 locations, predominately in Utah.
“Utah movie fans know that ‘Dune: Part Two’ is a big movie that needs to be experienced on the biggest screen possible,” he noted, adding that Megaplex locations are seeing strong advanced ticket sales for premium auditoriums such as IMAX, Dolby Atmos and D-Box motion screens.
The draw of these higher-priced tickets is leading some exhibitors to think the film could outperform projections.
“I think Warner Bros. has been conservative,” said Tim Handren, CEO at Santikos Entertainment, a regional cinema chain with 27 theaters in eight states. “Warner Bros. has done an absolute fantastic job marketing this movie.”
“They are geniuses in marketing,” ACX Cinemas’ Barstow echoed. “They just know how to build awareness.”
The film’s cast has been heavily promoting the film for weeks, participating in junkets, video interviews and appearing on late night shows. Even the stars’ premiere outfits have been making headlines, driving more awareness of the film’s release.
Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya attend the World Premiere of “Dune: Part Two” in Leicester Square in London, England, on Feb. 15, 2024.
Gareth Cattermole | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Alongside industry veterans such as Christopher Walken, Stellan Skarsgard, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Dave Bautista, “Dune: Part Two” features four of the biggest young stars in Hollywood: Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler.
Early ticket sales for the weekend are ahead of Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” which opened at $82.4 million, but below “Jurassic World Dominion,” which debuted at around $145 million, according to data from Fandango.
Cinema operators, while focused on the film’s opening weekend haul, are perhaps more interested in the longevity of “Dune: Part Two” at the box office.
While there are several new releases in March, which will help pad the overall domestic box office haul, “April is not nearly as strong,” Handren pointed out.
Highly anticipated film openings of 2024
March
- “Dune: Part Two” (March 1)
- “Imaginary” (March 8)
- “Kung Fu Panda 4” (March 8)
- “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” (March 29)
April
- “The First Omen” (April 5)
- “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” (April 12)
May
- “The Fall Guy” (May 3)
- “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (May 10)
- “Imaginary Friends” (May 17)
- “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (May 24)
- “The Garfield Movie” (May 24)
Titles like “Dune: Part Two,” which have a real shot at remaining in theaters with limited drops in ticket sales week after week, can help keep the box office afloat until the summer movie season begins in early May.
The film also offers exhibitors a chance to tease upcoming movies to audiences with those all-too-familiar previews before the film starts.
“I think ‘Dune’ opens up the entire world for us for summer,” Barstow said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
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U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2023.
Liu Jie | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Immediately after the Federal Reserve wraps up its meeting this week, all eyes are likely to gravitate to one small piece of wording that could unlock the future of monetary policy.
In its post-meeting statement, the central bank is expected give an important hint about interest rate moves to come by removing a clause from previous statements that reads: “In determining the extent of any additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time,” followed by an outlining of conditions it assesses.
For the past year-plus, the wording has underlined the Fed’s willingness to keep raising interest rates until it reaches its inflation goal. Remove that clause and it opens the door to potential rate cuts ahead; keep it and policymakers will be sending a signal that they’re not sure what’s to come.
The difference will mean a lot to financial markets.
Amending the wording could amount to a “meaningful overhaul” of the Federal Open Market Committee’s post-meeting statement, and its direction, according to Deutsche Bank economists.
“We heard at the December meeting that no official expected to raise rates further as a baseline outcome. And we’ve heard that Fed officials are beginning the discussions around rate cuts,” Matthew Luzzetti, Deutsche Bank’s chief U.S. economist, said in an interview. “So getting rid of that explicit tightening bias is kind of a precondition to more actively thinking about when they might cut rates, and to leaving the door open for a March rate cut.”
While the market has accepted for months that the Fed is likely done raising rates, the most burning question is when it will start cutting. The Fed last hiked in July 2023. Since then, inflation numbers have drifted lower and are, by one measure, less than a percentage point away from the central bank’s 2% 12-month target.
Just a few weeks ago, futures markets were convinced the Fed would start in March, assigning a nearly 90% probability to such a move, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge. Now, there’s considerably more uncertainty as multiple statements from Fed officials point to a more cautious approach about declaring victory over inflation.
Reading the tea leaves
Chairman Jerome Powell will have a thin line to walk during his post-meeting news conference.
“They’re going to get a lot of data between the January and March meetings, particularly as it relates to inflation,” Luzzetti said. “How those data come in will be critical to determining the outcomes of future meetings. He’ll leave it open, but will not try to open it any more than what the market already has.”
For this meeting, it will be harder to decipher where the full FOMC is heading as it will not include the quarterly “dot plot” of individual members’ projections.
However, most of the public statements that officials have delivered in recent days point away from a hurry to cut. At the same time, policymakers have expressed concern about over-tightening.
The fed funds rate, currently targeted in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, is restrictive by historical standards and looks even more so as inflation drops and the “real” rate rises. The inflation rate judged by core personal consumption expenditures prices, a U.S. Department of Commerce measure that the Fed favors, indicates the real funds rate to be around 2.4%. Fed officials figure the long-run real rate to be closer to 0.5%.
“The main thing that they will probably want to do is gain a lot of optionality,” said Bill English, the former head of monetary affairs at the Fed and now a finance professor at the Yale School of Management. “That would mean saying something rather vague at this point [such as] we’re determining the stance of policy that may be appropriate or something like that.”
Preparing for the future
Post-meeting statements going back to at least late 2022 have used the “in determining the extent of any additional policy firming” phrasing or similar verbiage to indicate the FOMC’s resolve in tightening monetary policy to bring down inflation.
With six- and three-month measures showing inflation actually running at or below the 2% target, such hawkishness could seem unnecessary now.
“In effect, that’s saying that they’re more likely to be raising than cutting,” English said of the clause. “I guess they don’t think that’s really true. So I would think they’d want to be ready to cut rates in March if it seems appropriate when they get there.”
Officials will be weighing the balance of inflation that is declining against economic growth that has held stronger than anticipated. Gross domestic product grew at an annualized pace of 3.3% in the fourth quarter, lower than the previous period but well ahead of where Fed officials figured it would be at this stage.
Traders in the fed funds futures market are pricing in about a 60% chance of a cut happening in March, the first of five or six moves by the end of 2024, assuming quarter-percentage-point increments, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge. FOMC members in their latest projections in December pointed to just three reductions this year.
The Fed hasn’t cut as aggressively as traders expected absent a recession since the 1980s and that “led to excess investor confidence culminating in the 1987 stock market crash,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said in his daily market note Monday evening.
Yet, Goldman Sachs economists said they figure the Fed will “remove the now outdated hiking bias” from the post-meeting statement and set the stage for a cut in March and five total on the year. In a client note, the firm said it also figures the committee could borrow a line from the December meeting minutes indicating it would “be appropriate for policy to remain at a restrictive stance until inflation is clearly moving down sustainably toward the Committee’s objective.”
However, a restrictive stance isn’t the same as holding rates where they are now, and that kind of linguistic move would give the committee wiggle room to cut.
Markets also will be looking for information on when the Fed begins to reverse its balance sheet runoff, a process that has seen the central bank reduce its bond holdings by about $1.2 trillion since mid-2022.
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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has revealed its strategic priorities for 2024, with a particular emphasis on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenization.
The 2024 roadmap points to a continuation of the watchdog’s engagement with digital financial technologies. The BIS has taken a heavily pro-CBDC stance and has published a comprehensive framework for countries looking to create their own localized digital currencies.
Exploring tokenization
One of the most ambitious undertakings in the BIS’s 2024 agenda is Project Promissa, which aims to revolutionize financial instruments by digitizing promissory notes using blockchain technology.
Promissory notes are still paper-based despite their integral role in the financial system. According to the regulator, their digitization could greatly enhance efficiency and transparency in financial transactions.
Project Promissa is a collaborative venture between BIS, the Swiss National Bank, and the World Bank. The proof-of-concept phase for the project is scheduled for completion by early 2025.
Project Aurum
Complementing the tokenization efforts is Project Aurum, a joint initiative with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which completed its initial pilot testing phase in 2022.
Project Aurum will focus on privacy in retail payments using CBDCs. Following its initial phase in 2022, the project aims to delve deeper into privacy issues related to CBDCs.
Project Aurum’s exploration of CBDC privacy is crucial, considering the growing global interest in digital currencies and the need for secure, private transactions. The project aligns with the broader strategy of the watchdog, highlighting the increasing importance of CBDCs in reshaping the financial sector.
The BIS’s 2024 agenda includes four other projects: Project Leap, Project Symbiosis, Project Hertha, and Project NGFS Data Directory 2.0. These projects cover cybersecurity, green finance, and financial crime. This diversified approach indicates BIS’s broad engagement with various aspects of financial technology.
Historically, BIS has maintained a prudent approach towards digital currencies, with a particular focus on the implications of stablecoins. In late 2023, Agustín Carstens, general manager of BIS, highlighted the importance of central banks in digital currency innovation, with a focus on CBDCs.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest cashes out part of its Grayscale’s GBTC stake as Bitcoin ETF optimism grows
Cathie Wood’s asset management firm ARK Invest sold more than 700,000 shares of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) holding in the past month amid the rapid closure of the fund’s discount.
Data from Cathies Ark, a website monitoring the daily trades of ARK, showed that the firm’s Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) offloaded 724,043 units of GBTC shares between Oct. 23 and today, Nov. 24. The firm is estimated to have earned more than $10 million from these sales.
During this period, GBTC shares value grew by more than 16% to as high as $30.85 today, Nov. 24, according to Tradingview data. This was fueled by the market optimism surrounding the possibility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Grayscale is one of the numerous asset managers, including BlackRock, who have a pending application with the financial regulator.
Despite these rapid selling activities, GBTC remains one of ARKW’s largest holdings, representing more than 9% of its portfolio, behind only crypto exchange Coinbase and advertising technology firm Roku.
GBTC discount falls under 10%
GBTC’s discount to net asset value (NAV) has fallen under 10% for the first time in the last two years, according to Coinglass data.
GBTC is one of the largest BTC investment options globally, holding over 620,000 BTC valued at over $23 billion. It offers investors exposure to the top crypto asset without direct ownership.
In 2021, a discount arose due to shareholders being unable to redeem their shares. This discount expanded to nearly 50% in 2022 before narrowing to about 40% earlier this year.
However, the situation changed notably after BlackRock submitted an application for a spot BTC ETF in June, sparking heightened institutional interest in the market.
Since then, the discount has significantly decreased. Market observers have suggested that the metric serves as a real-time gauge of investors’ confidence regarding the likelihood of the SEC approving a spot BTC ETF in the U.S.
Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup Inc., during an interview for an episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” at the Economic Club of Washington in Washington, D.C., March 22, 2023.
Valerie Plesch | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Citigroup will soon begin layoffs in CEO Jane Fraser’s corporate overhaul, CNBC has learned.
Employees affected by the cuts will be informed starting Wednesday, with new dismissals announced daily through early next week, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Those impacted will include chiefs of staff, managing directors and some lower-level employees, said the people. The cuts will spread to more rank-and-file staff by February, they added.
The move tracks with a timeline set by Fraser in a Sept. 13 memo. She announced five new divisions whose heads report directly to her, resulting in the departure of a handful of senior executives. The next phase of disruption will be “communicated and implemented by the end of November,” and “final changes” will be done by the end of March 2024, Fraser said at the time.
Fraser is under pressure to improve Citigroup, which has been mired in a stock slump as headcount and expenses have ballooned in recent years. The CEO, who took over in March 2021, is at a pivotal moment as she faces deep investor skepticism that the bank can hit performance targets she outlined last year.
Employees who have lost their roles may be able to apply for other positions, and Citigroup will offer severance pay where eligible, the company’s human resources chief told workers last month.
The full extent of job cuts is still being determined, but managers and consultants working on the project — known internally by its code name, “Project Bora Bora” — have discussed dismissals of at least 10% of workers in several businesses, CNBC reported last week.
New Citigroup organizational charts have been created, and managers are now deciding which employees they will retain and who will be left out, said one of the people.
Workers have flocked to internal chat platforms with questions about the impending cuts, according to the people, who declined to be identified speaking about personnel matters.
A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday beyond the statement it offered to CNBC previously:
“We’ve acknowledged the actions we’re taking to reorganize the firm involve some difficult, consequential decisions, but they’re the right steps to align our structure to our strategy and deliver the plan we shared at our 2022 Investor Day.”
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Peopleimages | Istock | Getty Images
When to appeal your Medicare Part B premium
You generally can’t have your Medicare Part B premiums adjusted — with one exception, according to Tim Steffen, director of advanced planning at financial services company Baird.
“If something has materially changed in your situation … you can appeal your Medicare premium,” Steffen said.
That applies to events that have caused your income to go down since 2022, such as a divorce, the death of a spouse, the loss of a pension or starting retirement.
You may file an appeal once you receive your benefit notice for 2024.
Medicare Part B premiums are based on beneficiaries’ modified adjusted gross income from two years prior. Therefore, 2024 Part B premiums are based on your 2022 federal tax returns.
That includes adjusted gross income — wages, retirement distributions, investment income, capital gains, rental income and Social Security benefits — as well as tax-exempt interest.
If you have municipal bond interest that you don’t pay federal taxes on because it is exempt, that can still prompt higher Medicare Part B premiums, Steffen said.
$1 in extra income can mean a higher premium
Managing Part B premium costs can be tricky, because even just $1 in additional income could push you into a higher bracket if you are close to the thresholds, Steffen noted.
Certain tax management strategies, such as Roth individual retirement account conversions, will trigger higher taxable income for the year the transaction was completed. Consequently, that may also result in a higher Medicare Part B premium.
“You can’t really lower your premium, you can just avoid increasing it,” Steffen said.
It helps to stay mindful of the income break points, he said. However, be sure to keep in mind that brackets for future years will change.
Football legend Tom Brady wants back in the NFL.
After retiring at the end of last season, Brady is attempting to buy a minority stake in the Las Vegas Raiders franchise, but he’s hitting some roadblocks.
Brady is seeking to buy 10% of the Raiders for $175 million, which would imply a team valuation of $1.75 billion — a significant discount from what NFL teams have recently been sold for, according to a report from the Boston Globe. For example, the NFL’s Washington Commanders sold for $6 billion in 2023, and the Denver Broncos sold for $4.6 billion in 2022 to a Walmart
WMT,
heir.
It’s probable that the team, which is owned by businessman Mark Davis, would want to be associated with a top athlete like Brady. A number of high-profile athletes are minority owners in teams, including Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton and the Broncos, basketball star Dwayne Wade and the NBA’s Utah Jazz, and baseball legend Derek Jeter and the MLB’s Miami Marlins.
However, the other NFL owners have yet to approve Brady’s purchase, which was first reported to be happening back in May.
“We’re trying to work through,” Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said about the proposed deal. “The number just has to be a reasonable number for purchase price for Tom, is the only thing. If reasonable value says that 10% should be $525 million, you can’t pay $175 million.”
With NFL owners not set to meet again until Dec. 12, Brady’s potential ownership stake will be on hold until the end of the year.
Representatives for Brady, Davis and the NFL did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.
See also: Michael Jordan is now worth $3 billion. Here’s what billionaire athletes have in common.
Davis and Brady do share common ownership of a team in another sport: the WNBA.
Davis owns the Las Vegas Aces, a WNBA team that Brady bought a minority stake in earlier this month. The Aces clinched their second consecutive WNBA championship on Wednesday over the New York Liberty. Brady and Davis were seen sitting together at one of the Aces games.
Las Vegas Raiders and Las Vegas Aces owner Mark Davis with Tom Brady at Game One of the 2023 WNBA playoffs.
Getty Images
The Raiders, a team that moved to Las Vegas from Oakland in 2020, is valued at $6.2 billion, according to Forbes estimates.
Brady, 46, retired as the NFL’s career leader in passing yards (89,214) and touchdowns (649). His $512 million fortune is made up of $332 million from his NFL checks over 23 seasons, with the rest coming from his off-field endeavors, including endorsements with Under Armour
UAA,
Ugg, Upper Deck and DraftKings
DKNG,
Brady also has a lucrative contract with Fox Sports to announce NFL games beginning in 2024. That deal is a 10-year contract worth up to $375 million, the largest in sports broadcasting history.
See also: Want to watch every NFL game this season? Here’s how much it will cost you.
Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, has laid off a portion of its staff according to a blog post published by the firm on Oct. 6.
The company’s CEO, Daniel Alegre, wrote:
“After … thoughtful consideration, I have decided that we need to restructure the Yuga Labs teams. The implication of these changes is that a number of roles have been eliminated across the company, impacting some of your colleagues.”
Alegre attributed the need for a shift in strategy to underwhelming launches in specific areas, particularly within the company’s gaming initiatives
Alegre revealed that, as part of the restructuring, Yuga Labs will delegate certain activities to external, third-party companies. Yuga Labs’ internal development teams, meanwhile, will focus on web3 efforts and Otherside — the company’s metaverse platform.
Allegre said elsewhere in his letter that the company will go in “all-in on [its] Otherside strategy.” He noted that Otherside will launch new gaming experiences in 2024 and will form long-term partnerships to complement Yuga Labs’ own efforts.
BAYC, CryptoPunks efforts will remain active
Alegre also commented on the status of certain high-profile products. He said that Bored Ape Yacht Club will expand a program called “Made by Apes”, which acts as a licensing model and community showcase for fan creations. Moreover, Alegre hinted at the launch of a gaming experience tied to the Bored Ape product line, slated for 2024.
Next, Allegre noted Yuga Labs will continue to manage CryptoPunks — an NFT series that Yuga Labs acquired in May 2022 — by “improving and streamlining” the Punks app. He indicated that a book about the NFT collection is still in progress.
While those two efforts will remain active, Alegre suggested that Yuga Labs will fold its Meebits and 10KTF teams into its Otherside team.
Yuga Labs did not describe any specific market or revenue trends leading to its staff reductions. However, activity in the NFT market has generally declined despite generating a record-breaking $55 billion in revenue in 2022. Despite Yuga Labs’ role in some of the largest NFT collections, it is unlikely that it has escaped this trend entirely.
The post Yuga Labs cuts staff as part of larger restructuring appeared first on CryptoSlate.
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