Ricky Forbees

AMC Just Broke Every Record This Weekend 🎬

AMC Entertainment had the best weekend in its history and we're talking worldwide, not just in the U.S. Every big number you can think of went up: total revenue, ticket sales, food and drink sales, all of it.

The reason? Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It hit ODEON theatres overseas on Wednesday, then opened in U.S. AMC theatres the next day. Early numbers show it pulled in $355 million domestically and $927 million globally good enough for the second-best opening weekend any movie has ever had, anywhere.

More than 10.2 million people showed up at AMC and ODEON theatres over that five-day stretch. That's AMC's busiest weekend in a full decade, and the third-busiest in the company's entire history.

Premium screens were the real winners here. Dolby Cinema had its best weekend ever at AMC. IMAX theatres were packed too, partly thanks to people still showing up in droves for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey — AMC's Lincoln Square 13 in New York ran IMAX 70mm screenings nonstop, all weekend, for the third week straight.

And it wasn't just one big day every single day broke a record. Thursday was AMC's best Thursday ever. Friday beat every other Friday. Saturday and Sunday did the same. Four days, four all-time records.

Concessions had a moment too food and drink sales hit an all-time weekend high, beating the record set back in 2019 during Avengers: Endgame's opening.

AMC's CEO Adam Aron didn't hold back the excitement, giving a shoutout to the film's cast and crew and calling it a landmark weekend for the company. He pointed out this is the ninth movie since March alone to post huge opening numbers proof, he said, that people still show up for the movies when there's something worth seeing. He also gave credit to the roughly 30,000 AMC and ODEON employees who kept things running.

Meanwhile, The Odyssey isn't slowing down either. Demand is still so strong two weeks in that AMC, IMAX, and Universal have pushed its IMAX 70mm run into September at select theatres.

$1,000 today could become $6,000. Here's how.

Most people assume you need serious money to start building wealth but that's just not true. Let's say you put a thousand dollars into the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF today and never touched it again. Here's what could happen.

Over the past fifty years, dividend-paying stocks in the S&P 500 have averaged about 9.2% a year more than double what non-dividend stocks have returned. This particular fund, VYM, has actually done a bit better than that, averaging around 9.32% since it launched. It spreads your money across more than 600 companies, so you get the benefit of compounding without putting all your eggs in one basket.

Fast forward twenty years, and that single thousand-dollar investment could grow to nearly six thousand dollars. That's almost a 500% return and you didn't have to do anything except leave it alone.

The takeaway? You don't need to be rich to start investing. You just need to start that's how you eventually get rich.

What would you do with an extra $5,000 in twenty years? Let me know below.

Buffett: You Only Need 5 Right Calls 🎯

This billionaire says you only need five good calls to get rich. Most people assume you have to be an expert on every single stock, but Warren Buffett sees it differently. Even after stepping down as Berkshire Hathaway's CEO last year, his core philosophy hasn't changed a bit. He borrows a lesson from baseball legend Ted Williams, who broke the strike zone down into seventy-seven squares. Swing only at pitches in your sweet spot, and you hit .400. Swing at everything, and your average falls apart.

Buffett's take? Investing actually beats baseball, because there's no such thing as a called strike. You can watch thousands of companies go by without swinging, and nobody penalizes you for it. He often tells students to picture a punch card with just twenty slots if that's all the investments you got in your entire life, you'd think a lot harder before using one. It's why Buffett passed on Amazon for years; he simply didn't understand the business. But he understood Coca-Cola and Bank of America inside and out and today, those two positions alone make up more than twenty percent of Berkshire's entire portfolio.

The takeaway? You don't need twenty brilliant calls to build real wealth. Four or five, done right, will probably get you there.

AUD Surges While USD Crashes — Why?! 😱📈

The Aussie is today's surprise standout. Chinese manufacturing data (RatingDog) actually came in softer this month, dipping to 50.9, yet AUD is shrugging it off and holding firm around 0.7030. Meanwhile, the US Dollar is taking a hit after Japan confirmed it dropped a massive $59 billion to prop up the Yen. Throw in escalating US-Iran tensions, and it's easy to see why the Aussie is the pair everyone's watching right now. Keep your eyes on the charts this move looks like it's just warming up.

A few tweaks I made: broke up the short, choppy sentences so it flows more like someone talking through the market rather than reading a script; swapped stiff phrasing ("is holding strong at," "is crashing") for more natural verbs; and used digits/symbols (50.9, $59 billion, 0.7030) instead of spelling out numbers, since that's how people actually write and read this stuff. Let me know if you want it punchier, more formal, or trimmed down further.

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S&P 500 Breaks Out Bulls Are Back in Control 🐂

The S&P 500 shrugged off the skeptics this week, closing out with some serious upward momentum. Everyone was bracing for a pullback instead, the index blew past key resistance levels and kept climbing. It's a breakout that points to a real shift in sentiment, with buyers piling back in.

Keep an eye on the charts next week, because right now, the bulls are clearly running the show.

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ASX Sinks as Gold Miners Crash, Domino's Soars 🍕

The ASX's three-day winning streak came to an end today, with gold miners bearing the brunt of the damage. The index slipped 0.8% after the US Fed reignited inflation fears, pushing bond yields to their highest level in nineteen years. Resolute Mining took a beating, down more than 7%, while Genesis Minerals wasn't far behind, dropping nearly 6%.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. Domino's Pizza was the standout performer, jumping 9% on the back of a surprise profit upgrade.

What's your take? Drop a comment below.

Bonds & Bras N Things just got sold. Again

Two of Australia's most recognisable underwear brands are about to change hands. Bonds and Bras N Things, currently owned by Hanes Australasia, are being sold to retail veteran Brett Blundy.

Hanes Australasia also owns Berlei and the homewares brand Sheridan, and it sits under global apparel giant Hanesbrands. Gildan, the Canadian company behind that name, bought Hanesbrands in 2025 and not long after, flagged that it wanted to offload the Australian arm. That plan is now becoming reality: Gildan confirmed the sale alongside its latest earnings results, with the deal expected to close sometime in the second half of 2026, pending the usual regulatory sign-off.

For Blundy, there's a nice bit of déjà vu here. He built Bras N Things from the ground up years ago before selling it to Hanesbrands in 2018 for roughly $500 million. Now he's buying it back Bonds included.

It's a fitting move for someone who's spent decades in this space. Blundy also owns Best & Less, played a role in Honey Birdette's sale to Pl***oy in 2021, holds a stake in Victoria's Secret, and just last year launched a new lingerie label called Leays.

CBA backflips on fees for low-income Aussies

Commonwealth Bank is doing a major about-face when it comes to how it treats its lower-income customers. After pressure from Australia's competition watchdog, CBA has agreed to shift roughly 1.5 million customers onto its fee-free bank account. This follows an earlier move where the bank had already refunded $93 million to low-income customers who'd been slugged with excessive fees.

So what changed? The ACCC handed down a final ruling this week, telling banks they need to offer eligible new customers basic accounts with little to no fees. But it doesn't stop there banks are now expected to go looking for existing customers who could benefit from a cheaper account and switch them across automatically, unless the customer says no.

That's a real shift from where CBA stood before. Last year, the bank wanted fee-free accounts to be opt-in only for existing customers, and it had plans in the works for a separate account that would still charge concession customers a small monthly fee.

Not anymore. CBA has now confirmed it's moving around 1.5 million eligible customers onto its fee-free Streamline Basic account, and it's putting the $1-a-month account on ice. A spokesperson for the bank said CBA backs giving customers access to basic banking and will roll out what the regulator's asked for.

As for why this matters, the ACCC's deputy chair made the point pretty clearly it's not enough for banks to just have these cheaper accounts sitting there. They need to actually help the right customers find them, instead of expecting people to go digging on their own.

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HSBC exits Australian retail banking for good

HSBC is stepping away from everyday banking in Australia. The bank has struck a deal to sell off its home loan and personal loan business roughly 120,000 customer accounts in total, covering both mortgages and personal loans to Blackstone, the US investment giant. The loans will actually be taken over by a Blackstone-backed entity called Virgo BidCo, with the whole thing expected to wrap up sometime in the first half of 2027.

It's a big moment for HSBC in Australia the bank has been lending here for 35 years, starting with personal loans back in 1991 before expanding into home loans a few years later. That said, it's not leaving the country entirely. HSBC says it'll keep its corporate banking, private banking, and asset management arms running as usual.

So what happens to existing customers? Pepper Money, an ASX-listed non-bank lender, will step in to manage and service the loans starting early 2027. HSBC says it's working closely with Pepper Money to make the handover as painless as possible. Everything else deposit accounts, credit cards, foreign currency accounts, wealth products will be gradually wound down over the next year and a half, and HSBC has already stopped accepting new applications.

As for the money side of things, HSBC expects to take a relatively minor hit under $100 million plus about $300 million in costs tied to winding the retail arm down. Whatever cash comes out of the sale will go back into the wider HSBC group rather than being earmarked for anything specific.

New Panda Mart opens amid VIC court case 👀

Panda Mart just opened its doors at a new superstore in Rocklea, south of the Brisbane CBD and it's doing so while still waiting to hear how a long-running legal battle in Victoria will play out. The Brisbane store is the retailer's third in Australia and its first venture outside Victoria. Right now it's in soft-launch mode, with the official grand opening set for August 3. The company took to social media to celebrate, congratulating the Brisbane team and wishing them a great opening weekend.

But the good news in Queensland comes alongside ongoing headaches in Victoria. Earlier this year, Consumer Affairs Victoria hit Panda Mart with 147 criminal charges, accusing the retailer of selling products at its Cranbourne store that didn't meet mandatory safety and labelling standards.

Panda Mart got its start in South Africa back in 2010 and only made its way into the Australian market last year. As part of the investigation, regulators won a court injunction that forced the company to temporarily close both its Preston and Cranbourne stores for 72 hours. Panda Mart pleaded guilty in June, and it's now just a matter of time before sentencing follows a scheduled plea hearing.