Month: July 2020

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. sealed a pact for an initial 100 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine Pfizer Inc. is developing with Germany’s BioNTech SE. President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. outbreak will probably get worse before it gets better.The coronavirus tightened its grip on the Asia Pacific region, with deaths reaching a daily high in Indonesia and infections hitting records in Hong Kong and Japan. Australia, once hailed as a virus success, also saw cases set a daily record.Aviation regulators in the European Union and Singapore are working together to establish health measures and facilitate a recovery of …read more […]

Pfizer Inc (PFE) and BioNTech SE (BNTX) have agreed to provide the US government with 100 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162, after Pfizer successfully manufactures and obtains approval or emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval. The U.S. government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.Shares in Pfizer are up 5% in Wednesday’s pre-market trading while BioNTech is up 6%.“Expanding Operation Warp Speed’s diverse portfolio by adding a …read more […]

Gold prices are near decade-high levels …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — U.S. health officials agreed pay $1.95 billion for 100 million doses of a vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the latest step in an effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic.The companies will receive payment upon the receipt of the doses, following regulatory authorization or approval, according to a statement. The government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.Nations around the world have begun ordering vaccines that are still being tested as part of their efforts to try to blunt the impact of the pandemic that’s roiled economies and killed more than 600,000 people …read more […]

Ericsson (ERIC) and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGY) have announced an expanded partnership with a new multi-year deal to deploy the service provider’s 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) across Germany.Under the terms of the deal, several mobile sites will be upgraded to the latest 5G technology standard over the next few years using Ericsson Radio System products and solutions. The 5G deal is in addition to a multi-RAN agreement following modernization of Deutsche Telekom’s 2G, 3G and 4G radio networks over the past two years.ERIC’s Spectrum Sharing solution will also be deployed, allowing Deutsche Telekom to dynamically manage 4G and 5G …read more […]

Investors who once overwhelmingly expected President Donald Trump to be reelected have increasingly resigned themselves to the prospect of a Joe Biden presidency. …read more […]

Novavax CEO Stanley Erck and three other executives would earn the options, worth $101 million at Tuesday’s closing stock price, if the company’s vaccine candidate enters a mid-stage clinical trial – regardless of its eventual success, according to a company filing. The incentive plan, which has not been previously reported, allows the executives to start exercising the options a year after Novavax starts the so-called Phase 2 trial, as it expects to do soon. …read more […]

Up… up… up…
Dow 100,000… here we come.
The Nasdaq and all of its techie components continue to smash records. Amazon (AMZN), Tesla (TSLA) and Facebook (FB) continue their magic trick of turning free money into cold hard cash.
Elon Musk is now the fifth-richest person on the planet, and Jeff Bezos made $13 billion on Monday alone.
Meanwhile… Congress is up against the wall to print more money and mail it to everyday Americans.
With just days to save the nation from eating itself, all eyes are on Washington.
How much money will it print this time?
Another trillion? Maybe three?
Will your neighbor get $600 each …read more […]

Top news and what to watch in the markets on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. …read more […]

Wall Street, however, is braced for Microsoft to report that Azure, its flagship cloud computing business, has slipped below 50% revenue growth for the first time ever. Analysts also expect some declines, such as for Microsoft’s on-premises server purchases and sales of consumer devices. Azure’s slowing growth, analysts said, was long expected as the business balloons to tens of billions of dollars per year. …read more […]

Tesla Inc.’s (TSLA) billionaire founder Elon Musk qualified on Tuesday for a payout worth more than $2 billion, his second jackpot since May from the electric car maker as the stock surged a whopping 275% this year.Tesla’s stock was down 4.5% at the close on Tuesday, trimming the rally that has propelled the company’s market capitalization to over $290 billion, larger than any other carmaker.Despite Tuesday’s stock decline, Tesla’s six-month average market capitalization for the first time has reached $150 billion, according to a Reuters report. That triggers the vesting of the second of 12 tranches of options granted to …read more […]

Shares in Aurinia Pharma (AUPH) surged 9% in Tuesday’s extended trading after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted the filing of its New Drug Application (NDA) for voclosporin, a potential treatment for lupus nephritis (LN). This is a serious inflammation of the kidneys caused by the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).Encouragingly, the FDA granted a faster six-month Priority Review for the application (instead of the usual ten months), with a PDUFA decision date set for January 22, 2021.The FDA also told Aurinia that they are not currently planning to hold an advisory committee meeting to discuss the …read more […]

Texas Instruments (TXN) sees third-quarter sales beating analysts’ expectations as the work-from-home environment continues to drive demand for the chipmaker’s products for personal computers, tablets and servers.Texas Instruments projects current-quarter revenue will be in a range of $3.26 billion to $3.54 billion, which is above analysts’ expectations of $3.12 billion. Earnings are expected to be in the range of $1.14 to $1.34 a share compared with the 98 cents forecast by an average of analysts.“We will maintain high optionality so we can continue to support customers’ demand, particularly during a time when their ability to forecast may continue to be …read more […]

Shares in cannabis stock OrganiGram (OGI) plunged 9% in Tuesday’s trading after the company reported disappointing earning results for the fiscal third quarter.Specifically, Q3 GAAP EPS of -$0.51 fell short of Street estimates by $0.48. Revenue of $18.02M represented a 27% drop year-over-year, but beat consensus expectations by $2.64M.For the quarter, OGI reported negative gross margin of $26.4 million compared to positive $12.3 million in Q3 2019 citing lower net revenue and higher cost of sales.Meanwhile the company announced that it reduced its workforce by ~25% or ~220 employees in June 2020 in order to ‘better align with the needs …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — European stocks dropped and U.S. futures fluctuated after the White House delivered fresh warnings about the spread of the coronavirus and as uncertainty lingered over the timing of new stimulus.The dollar fell for a fourth day as President Donald Trump warned the outbreak will probably get worse before it gets better. Gold jumped above $1,850 an ounce, while silver climbed to the highest in almost seven years. Oil in New York eased from a four-month high on signs of a surprise gain in U.S. crude stockpiles. Asian shares traded mixed.As earnings continue to roll in, investors are taking …read more […]