The Wall Street Journal - 07.10.2019

B2| Monday, October 7, 2019 ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople
in today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

A
Acuity Brands.............B4
ADC Therapeutics.......B5
Akre Focus Fund.........R2
American Tower..........R2
ArcLight Cinema.........B2
AT&T............................B2
B
Bank of America
A2,B10,R1
Bank of Kunlun...........A6
Bayerische Motoren
Werke......................B11
Berkshire Hathaway...R2
C
Calvert Equity Fund....R2
Charles Schwab..........A1
Cheyne Capital..........R11
China National
Petroleum.................A6
Citigroup..............B4,B10
Constellation Brands..A2
Constellation
Pharmaceuticals.......A2
Constellation Software
R2
Crake Asset
Management...........R11
D
Datadog.......................B5
Delta Air Lines...........B4
Domino's Pizza...........B4
E
Eaton Vance Atlanta
Capital Focused
Growth Fund.............R2
Endeavor Group
Holdings....................B5
E*Trade Financial.......A1
F
Fiat Chrysler
Automobiles...........A10
FlexShares Quality
Dividend Index Fund R9
Ford Motor........A10,B11
Foresight Energy........B1

G

General Mills...............B1

General Motors...A1,B11

Gilt Groupe..................B3

Gotham Asset

Management.............R5

Gotham Large Value

Fund..........................R5

H

Hershey.......................B1

HP..............................B11

Hyundai Motor..........B11

Invesco S&P 500 Quality

ETF............................R9

I

iPath S&P 500 VIX

Short-Term Futures

ETN............................R4

iShares Edge MSCI USA

Quality Factor ETF...R9

J

Johnson & Johnson....B4

JPMorgan Chase B4,B10

JPMorgan U.S. Quality

Factor ETF.................R9

Juul Labs.....................B1

K

Kellogg.........................B1

Kynetic........................B3

L

Levi Strauss................B4

Lyft..............................B5

M

Macy's.........................B1

Mahindra CIE

Automotive.............B11

Man FRM..................R11

Maruti Suzuki India..B11

Microchip Technology.B1

Mondelez International

B1

Morgan Stanley.....A2,R1

Morningstar.......R12,R13

Murray Energy............B1

N

Nike ............................B4

P

Petropars....................A6

Pinterest.....................B5

Q

Qinghai Provincial

Investment Group..B10

R

Ralph Lauren...............B3

Roper Technologies....R2

S

Simon Property GroupB3

Slack Technologies.....B5

Suzuki Motor............B11

T

Tanger Factory Outlet

Centers......................B3

Tapestry......................B3

Tata Motors..............B11

TD Ameritrade Holding

A1

Total SA......................A6

Toyota Motor............B11

Tyson Foods................B1

U-V

Uber Technologies......B1

UBS..............................R1

United Airlines Holdings

B4

US Quality Dividend

Growth Fund.............R9

Valley Forge Capital.R11

Vanguard Group..........R2

VelocityShares Daily 2x

VIX Short Term ETNR4

Volkswagen...............B11

W-Z

Walt Disney................B2

We...............................B5

Wells Fargo.................R1

Woodline Partners....R11

Wynn Resorts.............B1

Zoom Video

Communications.......B5

INDEX TO PEOPLE

Estimated Box-Office Figures, Through Sunday

SALES, IN MILLIONS

FILM DISTRIBUTOR WEEKEND* CUMULATIVE % CHANGE

1.Joker Warner Bros. $93.5 $93.5 --

2.Abominable Universal $12 $37.8 -42

3.Downton Abbey Focus Features $8 $73.6 -44

4.Hustlers STX

Entertainment

$6.3 $91.3 -45

5.It Chapter Two Warner Bros. $5.4 $202.2 -48

*Friday, Saturdayand Sunday Source: Comscore

loan holders to extend debt

maturities last year. But the

company now finds itself too

tight on cash to meet more

than $200 million in obliga-

tions coming due in the next

12 months, these people said.

The company is expected to

generate no more than $100

million in cash over the next

year. As of June 30, the com-

pany had about $73 million in

cash and revolver loan avail-

ability, they said.

Investors have fled Murray

Energy’s debt, sending prices

on its $500 million in notes

due in 2024 dwindling to just

over 1 cent on the dollar, ac-

cording to MarketAxess.

Murray Energy also has

blamed its business struggles

on nongovernmental organiza-

tions dedicated to minimizing

coal as a power source. It has

singled out the Sierra Club’s

Beyond Coal campaign as a

business risk and cited the

backing the organization re-

ceived from billionaire Michael

Bloomberg, the former New

York City mayor.

Mr. Murray and his com-

pany have been generous do-

nors to Mr. Trump’s political

groups, Federal Election Com-

mission records show. Mr.

Murray has worked hard to tip

the political and regulatory

scales in favor of coal amid

pressure on utilities to switch

out of fossil fuel.

talks with their creditors. Both
sets of discussions could lead
to bankruptcy filings by the
two companies, according to
people familiar with the matter.
A surge in natural-gas pro-
duction and renewable proj-
ects is roiling U.S. electricity
markets, while green-energy
mandates work against coal as
a source of fuel in key mar-
kets. The share of U.S. elec-
tricity generated from coal fell
to 28% from 48% between
2008 and 2018, according to
the Energy Information Ad-
ministration, which expects a
further drop to 25% this year
and 22% in 2020.
In response to cratering de-
mand, Murray Energy pulled
back its coal production by 16%
between 2014 and 2018 to 52.6
million tons from 62.8 million
tons, according to private com-
pany reports reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal. A recent
crash in the price of export
coal also has snuffed out what
had been a brisk international
business and one of the com-

Continued from the prior page

Coal Baron

Is Pushed

Near Edge

A
Abrams, Natalia..........R8
Akre, Charles..............R2
B
Bailey, Mike................B1
Balashov, Vadim.......R13
Barber, Brad..............R13
Black, Doug.................R2
Bloomberg, Michael....B2
Bloom, Nick.................R4
Boyson, Nicole............R1
Buffett, Warren...B11,R2
D
Davi, John...................R9
Davis, Steven..............R4
Dillon, Chris................B4
Dittes, Terry.............A10
Durham, John.............A4
E
Ellison, Jennifer..........R2
F
Farr, Michael.............B11
Foehrenbach, Jens....R11
G-H
Greenblatt, Joel..........R5
Hackett, Jim.............B11

Haefele, Mark...........B11

Harvey, Campbell......B11

Heinz, Kenneth.........R11

Huan, Meng...............B10

Hudepohl, Joe.............R2

Hudson, Paul...............B5

Hunt, Dan....................R2

J

Johnson, Ben............R12

K

Kantesaria, Dev........R11

Kline, Rick...................B5

Knoll, Mark.................R2

Kong, Amy...................B4

Kroeker, Karl.............R11

L

Ladner, Scott..............R2

Lee, Victor...................B2

Lejuez, Paul.................B3

Li, Laura....................B10

Louvet, Patrice............B3

Lui, Matthew............R12

Luis, Victor..................B3

M

Michelson, Stuart.....R12

Mudrick, Jason..........R11

Murray, Robert...........B1

N

Nagel, Vernon.............B4

Neff, John...................R2

Nelson, Mark..............B2

Nikiforov, Andrei......R13

Nolte, Ray.................R11

O

Odean, Terrence........R13

R

Reinkensmeyer, Blain.A2

Rockefeller, Michael.R11

Rosenbluth, Todd........R9

Rubin, Michael............B3

S-Z

Shugrue, Ryan..........R12

Simon, David...............B3

Slott, Ed......................R4

Taylor, Martin...........R11

Thompson, Jessica.....R8

Tohme, Carl...............R11

Waldert, Bing..............R2

Williams, Ash...........R11

Williams-Barrett,

Theresa.....................R8

Z

Zangeneh, Bijan..........A6

majority stake in the owner of
Perfect Bar, a refrigerated,
protein-rich product.
Kellogg in 2017 bought Rx-
bar, a protein bar made with
egg whites and dates. Kellogg
has put Rxbars in more stores,
helping sales jump about 18%
this year, the company said.
“Now it has all kinds of
copycats,” said Victor Lee, Rx-
bar’s chief marketing officer.
Epic, a smaller brand owned
by General Mills, last year in-
troduced date-and-egg-white
bars that have a similar look
and taste as Rxbar.
M&M’s maker Mars Inc. in
2017 took a stake in the com-
pany that makes Kind bars

Continued from the prior page

that was estimated at more

than $1 billion. The brand was

one of the more successful

ones to appear in recent years,

but founder Daniel Lubetzky

said that the introduction of

similar products from other

companies recently has taken

a toll on Kind’s sales. “There’s

not room for 400 whole-nut

bars,” he said.

Old Brands

Miss Snack

Bar Wave

pany’s few bright spots.

A Murray Energy spokes-

man declined to comment.

Murray’s predicament

“sharpens the focus on rapidly

declining domestic demand and

gives a glimpse of what the fu-

ture will hold,” said Mark Nel-

son, coal analyst for Moody’s.

Until recently, Murray En-

ergy was one of the few big

coal miners to buck the

broader industry downturn

through a creative combina-

tion of deal-making and finan-

cial engineering and thanks to

better prices for both domes-

tic and export coal.

The company has been able

to juggle a heavy load of more

than $2.5 billion in debt for

years, even as it has barely

generated any cash in the past

four years after paying inter-

est to financial creditors and

health benefits for retirees, ac-

cording to people familiar

with the matter.

Despite Murray’s troubled

financial situation, it per-

suaded most of its bond and

Murray Energy has

long carried a heavy

debt load while

barely making cash.

Year-over-year change

in overall U.S. dollar sales

2017 ’17 ’18 ’19*

Cereal

and

granola

bars

Health

and

nutrition

bars

6%

–6

–4

–2

0

2

4

Source: Nielson

*For the 52 weeks ended in August

and made many investors less

likely to actively buy and sell

online. It has also given way to

cheap financial advice where

robo advisers suggest a basket

of ETFs running on autopilot.

The race to zero started

when regulators in 1975 abol-

ished fixed trading commis-

sions. Some brokerages, like

Merrill Lynch, used the oppor-

tunity to raise commissions.

Charles R. Schwab has

called Merrill’s decision his

lucky break. Schwab went

public in 1987, with E*Trade

and TD Ameritrade following

over the next decade. Day

trading took off during the

tech bubble of the 1990s, and

for the first time, everyday in-

Four decades later, the busi-

ness of hawking hot stocks for

big commissions is all but dead.

Last week,Charles Schwab

Corp. said it would scrap com-

missions to trade stocks, ex-

change-traded funds and op-

tions online. The move was

the most dramatic yet in a

price war playing out across

the financial sector, squeezing

firms’ profits as customers eat

up ever-cheaper investment

products and services.

With the price of trading

suddenly zero at the biggest

publicly traded online broker-

age, rivals TD Ameritrade

HoldingCorp. andE*Trade Fi-

nancialCorp. swiftly matched

Schwab’s move. Investors pun-

ished the companies, wiping

out $16.4 billion in aggregate

market value last week.

For an industry that set out

to disrupt the old-school bro-

kerage business of charging

fat commissions, the move to

zero commissions seemed all

but inevitable. While commis-

Continued from page B1

sought to distance itself from

the July 20, 2012, shooting—in

which a gunman fired into the

audience at the beginning of a

late-night showing of “The

Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12

people—the connections be-

tween the subject matter ex-

plored in “Joker” and gun vio-

lence appeared to only stoke

the debate. After committing

murder, the film’s protagonist

inadvertently becomes leader

of a clown-mask-wearing mob

eager to carry out a revolution

in fictitious Gotham City,

which is strikingly similar to

1970s New York City.

Warner Bros. recently is-

sued a statement pointing to

its “long history of donating to

victims of violence, including

Aurora.” The company also

said that “neither the fictional

BUSINESS & FINANCE

character Joker, nor the film,

is an endorsement of real-

world violence of any kind.”

Warner’s Bros.’ decision to

build a somber character study

around one of its DC fran-

chise’s most infamous villains

stands in contrast to the more

lighthearted route employed

byWalt DisneyCo.’s Marvel

Studios, which has been re-

sponsible for films such as

“Avengers: Endgame” and

“Black Panther.” Marvel has

achieved unparalleled success

at the box office tempering its

otherwise action-heavy PG-13

films with a blend of heartfelt

moments and comedy.

Even Warner Bros. lately

has steered in a lighter direc-

tion with some superhero fare,

including “Wonder Woman”

and “Aquaman,” which were

both rated PG-13.

The main character in

“Joker,” Arthur Fleck, strug-

gles to keep his job as a mirth-

less clown, aggravating his

battle with mental illness and

delusions of grandeur. A hasty

act of violence sparks his

eventual transformation into

the villain.

Mr. Phoenix’s portrayal—

which many critics have

praised as electrifying, if dis-

turbing—plays out against the

backdrop of a fictitious me-

tropolis being ripped apart by

class warfare.

Produced for considerably

less than the hundreds of mil-

lions of dollars often spent

making comic-book movies,

“Joker” could end up as one of

Warner Bros.’s most profitable

films of 2019, a below-average

year so far for the studio. The

film has grossed $140.5 million

outside North America, ac-

cording to the studio.

—Joe Flint

contributed to this article.

Warner Bros.’ brooding

drama “Joker” soared to a re-

cord October opening weekend

as heightened security didn’t

deter moviegoers. The R-rated

film hauled in $93.5 million in

the U.S. and Canada, according

to preliminary estimates.

A month ago, “Joker,” star-

ring Joaquin Phoenix as the

comic-book villain, was the

toast of the film festival cir-

cuit, taking home the top prize

in Venice. But then, as its

opening weekend approached,

debate arose over whether the

film’s themes could inspire vi-

olent acts. Families of some

victims from the 2012 shooting

at a movie theater in Aurora,

Colo.—during a screening of

an earlier Batman film—wrote

a letter questioning theAT&T

Inc.-owned studio’s decision to

release the film, which depicts

how a social outcast became

Batman’s nemesis.

Police departments and the-

aters around the nation ratch-

eted up security measures for

the movie’s opening weekend.

Ahead of the film’s release, the

Federal Bureau of Investiga-

tion said it was monitoring

posts online for alarming be-

havior, encouraging “the pub-

lic to remain vigilant and to

promptly report suspicious ac-

tivity to law enforcement,” ac-

cording to a spokesperson.

Before a Friday evening

screening atArcLight Cinema

Co.’s landmark Cinerama Dome

theater in Los Angeles, an

usher searched ticket holders’

bags as they entered, saying

the uncommon security mea-

sure was related to the 2012

shooting. ArcLight manage-

ment couldn’t be reached for

comment.

While Warner Bros. has

BYR.T.WATSON

‘Joker’ Soars Amid Security Jitters

The movie, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Batman villain, set a

North American record for an opening weekend in October.

NIKO TAVERNISE/WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION

sion-free trading is a victory

for firms aimed at opening up

investing to the masses, it

could also make online broker-

ages victims of their own suc-

cess. Now, they must find

fresh ways to make money at a

time when a darkening eco-

nomic outlook weighs on re-

maining revenue streams.

“Not everyone is going to

survive this,” said Robert Sie-

gel, a lecturer in management

at Stanford University.

Declining revenue could also

set off further consolidation of

e-brokers, which were cutting

costs and laying off employees

even before the abrupt move to

zero commissions. That consoli-

dation trend has already been

under way, with TD Ameritrade

acquiring Scottrade in 2017, and

E*Trade buying the parent com-

pany of OptionsHouse the previ-

ous year. Analysts at Sandler

O’Neill + Partners said in a note

Thursday that E*Trade could be

an acquisition target.

The progression to barely-

there fees has been cascading

across brokerages and asset

managers for decades. Cheap

ETFs and index funds have be-

come the norm, and they have

fueled investors’ shift toward

investments that seek to track

an index’s performance rather

than beat it. That growing

preference has eroded stock-

picking fees across Wall Street

vestors could buy and sell on-

line without having to go

through a human broker.

For years, e-brokers grew

without much notice from the

denizens of Wall Street. They

were discounters, appealing to

clients whom traditional firms

weren’t interested in handling.

But as trading, investing and

advice prices fell, these firms

amassed trillions of dollars in

client assets. At the end of the

latest quarter, Schwab, TD

Ameritrade and E*Trade had a

collective $6 trillion in client

money, compared with $2.9

trillion atBank of America

Corp.’s wealth-management

business, which includes Mer-

rill, and $2.6 trillion atMorgan

Stanley’s brokerage business.

Now, e-brokers’ fates hinge

on their ability to evolve past

day trading by wooing new cli-

ents paying for products and

services in new—and poten-

tially less transparent—ways.

For Schwab, it will be easier.

By the time Schwab nixed trad-

ing fees, it had already whit-

tled its revenue from commis-

sions to 7% of its overall

business. For TD Ameritrade

and E*Trade, though, trading

fees still represented a signifi-

cant portion of revenue. Scrap-

ping commissions will wipe out

about 15% of TD Ameritrade’s

revenue and about 11% of

E*Trade’s, the companies said.

Price

Of Trading

Hits Zero

Share of households seeking

recommendations from

financial advisers

Source: Cerulli Associates

Note: Only includes households with at least

$100,000 in investable assets.

70

55

60

65

%

2006 ’10 ’15 ’18

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