Month: September 2020

September traditionally signals back-to-school, but has the month signaled something else for investors? To follow up a historic rally, September has seen steep losses across the board, with the S&P 500 slipping 5% since the month kicked off. This decline has led some to wonder, is this just a correction, or is it the beginning of another bear market? Hedge fund manager David Tepper has said the market is “maybe the second most overvalued” he has ever witnessed, only behind the 1999 dot-com bubble. “The market’s pretty high and the Fed’s put a lot of money in here … the …read more […]

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On September 10, JetBlue announced that it will launch 24 new routes later this year in anticipation of improving demand for leisure travel.JetBlue (JBLU) believes that the new routes will enhance its strength in its focus cities, in Florida, in Latin American, the Caribbean and on cross-country routes. The carrier’s new flights will start in November and December, with ticket sales having already started on September 10.The new routes will help JetBlue in reactivating some temporarily parked aircraft, the company says.Scott Laurence, head of revenue and planning, JetBlue stated, “This latest series of new routes – even in the current …read more […]

Netflix Co-Founder and Co-CEO Reed Hastings joins ‘Influencers with Andy Serwer’ to discuss the company’s shift toward original content. …read more […]

Phase three trials for the AstraZeneca (AZN)/ Oxford coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, have now resumed in the UK following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) that it was safe to restart.On 6 September, AZN paused all its global vaccine trials to allow the review of safety data by independent committees, and international regulators. The company said the voluntary move was triggered by its standard review process, but did not disclose any further information.“The UK committee has concluded its investigations and recommended to the MHRA that trials in the UK are safe to resume” AZN stated on September 12. The …read more […]

Merck & Co. (MRK) has now started testing its experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidate V591 in healthy volunteers, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.The Phase 1 / 2 trial, which will take place in Belgium with 260 enrolled subjects, was reported by Merck on a government database and confirmed by the company, says the Wall Street Journal.According to the publisher, Merck said that dosing in study subjects has begun, but did not provide further comment.Merck gained the rights to V591 via its May acquisition of Themis, an Austrian vaccine maker developing vaccines and therapies based on an innovative …read more […]

SoftBank Group Corp. is on the cusp of inking a deal to sell British chip designer Arm Holdings to Nvidia (NVDA) for more than $40 billion, says the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.According to the report, the cash-and-stock deal currently being negotiated would value Arm in the low $40 billions, the people said. SoftBank snapped up Arm four years ago for $32 billion.Meanwhile the Financial Times reports that the deal could be announced as soon as Monday.According to Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser a sale to Nvidia would spell trouble for the company. He told the BBC …read more […]

Gilead Sciences (GILD) is nearing a deal to buy biotech Immunomedics Inc for more than $20 billion, says the Wall Street Journal, which cites people familiar with the matter.Immunomedics (IMMU) currently has a market value of just $9.77B, which means that GILD would be paying a significant premium in order to obtain IMMU’s key breast-cancer drug, Trodelvy. Shares in IMMU have already doubled year-to-date, with a 37% leap over the last three months.In August, Immunomedics reported that Trodelvy generated $20.1M in its first two months on the market. Furthermore, market research conducted by the company showed that >80% of oncologists …read more […]

Two senior Boeing Co executives who oversaw the development of the 737 MAX defended the company’s decisions on a key cockpit system later tied to two fatal crashes, according to testimony before congressional investigators seen by Reuters. Michael Teal, then 737 MAX chief product engineer, and Keith Leverkuhn, who was vice president and general manager of the 737 MAX program, were questioned separately by investigators for the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in May. “I don’t consider the development of the airplane to be a failure,” Leverkuhn told investigators for the House panel that is to …read more […]

It’s a particularly busy week ahead. Monetary policy, geopolitics, and economic data will influence the majors and risk sentiment in the week. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — It was meant to be the week when OPEC nations gathered in Baghdad to celebrate the cartel’s six decades as a dominant force in global oil markets.Instead, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies will convene online, and reflect on whether the coranavirus has thwarted their best efforts to keep the market afloat.After reviving crude prices from an unprecedented collapse over the spring, OPEC+ is seeing the recovery stall and fuel demand falter as the deadly pandemic surges once again. Prices slipped below $40 a barrel last week for the first time since June.On Thursday, Saudi …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The pandemic has set off a wave of theft in the Philippines. The target? Plants.The government has stepped up monitoring of social media and patrolling of protected natural areas amid reports of traders scouring mountains and forests for plants, including endangered species, to meet a sudden spike in demand from locked-down Filipinos who are craving some greenery in their homes.“Illegal gatherers and collectors are having a fiesta because the market is bigger and prices are more attractive,” said Rogelio Demallete, an ecosystem specialist at the nation’s Biodiversity Management Bureau. “People are buying and raising plants because of boredom …read more […]

Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) is gearing up to purchase drug innovator Immunomedics Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMU) for a price tag exceeding $20 billion.Per the Wall Street Journal, Immunomedics — a biotech known for breast-cancer treatment Trodelvy — was initially a partner of Gilead before takeover talks began. Terms are expected to be announced Monday. Immunomedics, whose valuation hovers $10 billion, is just the latest in a series of deals Gilead made in 2020.In June, Foster City, California-based Gilead acquired a 49.9% stake in cancer drug developer Pionyr Immunotherapeutics for $275 million. Before that, it spent $4.9 billion for Forty Seven …read more […]

U.S mortgage rates hit fresh lows. Mixed sentiment towards the economic recovery and the tech sector rout weighed in the week. …read more […]

A deal for Immunomedics, whose cancer therapy Trodelvy is FDA-approved as a third-line treatment for an aggressive type of breast cancer called Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, could be announced Monday if not sooner, the Journal said https://www.wsj.com/articles/gilead-nears-deal-to-buy-immunomedics-for-more-than-20-billion-11599936777?mod=hp_lead_pos2, citing people familiar with the matter. Discussions between Gilead and Immunomedics were initially centered around a partnership before shifting to a full-fledged takeover negotiation, the Journal added. …read more […]