Stocks soar higher than "Snakes on a Plane"

Welcome to the Weekend Recap, your one-stop shop for a summary on how the markets did during the week, plus a look at how the box office performed over the weekend. We give you perspective for the business week ahead, plus box office candy for the watercooler. In this weeks' edition, we take a look at what spurred the major buying frenzy among investors. Also, we take a look to see if the hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane translated into box office income or if it was all hiss and no bite. Finally, we take a look to see if our mid-week predictions were Fact or Fiction. And it's all right in front of you, right now.

Stocks were surprisingly popular this week with all three major markets experiencing terrific gains for the week's end. On Tuesday, it was reported that the core-PPI in July fell 0.3%, beating expectations that called for an increase of 0.2%. Additionally, the CPI was reported to have increased 0.2% after four consecutive months of 0.3% increases. Add that to declining housing sales, the market is optimistic that the Fed will keep the interest rate locked when it meets again on September 20. And if they persistently keep the interest rate locked in, we just may have prevented a huge inflation after all. Understandably, investors were ecstatic at this outlook and went on a buying spree this week, scooping up stocks like they were gold. On a gasoline note, Crude oil futures closed the week at $71.10, 4.4% lower than what they opened at Monday morning.

To find out exactly how optimistic traders were this week, please refer to the scoreboard below for more information.

(Source: Yahoo! Finance)

It had more internet buzz about it than Superman Returns, X-Men: United and Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest combined. Despite the catchy title, Snakes on a Plane failed to impress movie-goers this weekend. The horror/thriller pulled in an estimated $13.9 million over the weekend, failing to make enough to come into first place. This weekend, the top honors went to Talladega Nights once again, pulling in a modest $14.1 million. All in all, it was a really slow weekend at cineplexes everywhere, with no single film even topping the $20 million mark. To see the estimated tallies for the weekend, please refer to the scoreboard posted below.

(Source: BoxOfficeMojo)

During our mid-week Weekend Preview, we take the liberty of making a few predictions about how well the top five films will do at the box office for the upcoming weekend. But we don't just make baseless predictions without owning up to them. That's why we've dedicated the third act of the Recap to facing our cinema forecasts, to tell you if what I wrote earlier is closer to fact or fiction. We don't even use a fancy graphic like Acts I and II use to give you the meat of the information, mainly because we hate glorifying our losses like that. (Plus, Tonya says that she won't make a graphic for this segment. And Josh isn't that prolific in computers yet, so, we're pretty much stuck using regular text.) But also we want to lay it out very simple for you. If we're wrong, we're wrong. If we're close to right, well, we're close to right.

We Said: 1. Snakes on a Plane, $40-45 million.
Fact:Talladega Night, $14.1 million.

We Said: 2. Talladega Nights, $20-$25 million.
Fact: Snakes on a Plane, $13.9 million.

We Said: 3. Accepted, $20-$25 million.
Fact: World Trade Center, $10.8 million.

We Said: 4. Step Up, $15-20 million.
Fact: Accepted, $10.1 million.

We Said: 5. Material Girls, $15-20 million.
Fact: Step Up, $9.9 million.

Conclusion: Fiction. We got absolutely nothing right. To call this weeks' predictions a work of fiction would be a tremendous understatement. Perhaps this is a sign to order that box office predictions correspondence class.

And now you know the cliffnotes version of what happened this past week. You know what drove the markets to close on a happy note and you know how well Snakes on a Plane fared at the box office. Plus you get to gloat that your own personal predictions for the box office were much better than my own. (I cry on the inside when people do that. A lot.) We hope you enjoyed this week's installment of the Recap. Be sure to come back mid-week for the Preview when we run down the movies opening next weekend! And stay tuned at the Epsilon Institute next weekend for pictures from an exclusive Grand Rapids, MI-area party. Until then, stay safe and remember: friends don't let friends become anorexics.