Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg offered dueling views on lockdown measures designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus on Wednesday, with Facebook’s Zuckerberg endorsing the measures while Tesla’s Musk condemned them as anti-democratic.
Asian stocks rose to a fresh seven-week high on Thursday, lifted by encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial, though bonds and currencies held cautious ranges ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later in the day.
New clinical data on Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental antiviral drug remdesivir has raised hopes it might be an effective treatment for the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 3 million people and killed over 225,000 worldwide. On Wednesday, partial data from three different trials of the drug were released, creating both excitement and confusion. Much analysis and more studies are needed to understand which COVID-19 patients are most likely to benefit from the drug if it is deemed effective, under what circumstance it should be given, and whether it has any impact on the death rate. …read more […]
“We will maintain a solid balance sheet with ample capital, liquidity and loss allowance reserves that give us strong buffers to absorb external shocks,” DBS CEO Piyush Gupta said in a statement on Thursday. DBS was the first bank in Singapore to report earnings for the quarter. “This was largely due to the spike in provisions, which is likely higher than what the market expects but in fact included a large portion of general provisions which shows the bank wants to buffer ahead,” said Kevin Kwek, a senior analyst at Stanford C. Bernstein. …read more […]
Tyson Foods Inc is halting operations at a beef facility in Dakota City, Nebraska until May 4 to complete a deep cleaning of the plant amid the coronavirus outbreak, a unit of the largest U.S. meat supplier said on Wednesday.
Anthem Inc said on Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic could trigger a big shift in business mix and push more people into Medicaid or Obamacare health plans from employer-sponsored ones due to job losses across industries.
(Bloomberg) — The Trump administration is planning a Manhattan Project-style program to drastically cut the time it takes to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Gilead Sciences Inc. said its experimental treatment remdesivir helped patients recover faster, sending U.S. stocks higher.New York reported a fourth day of declining deaths and is ramping up testing as it moves toward reopening some regions. France and Spain took cautious steps toward lifting restrictions.U.S. economic data showed the country’s record-long expansion is over, with a recession under way. Japan’s industrial production fell less than expected in March but much steeper declines are likely ahead as a …read more […]
Tesla Inc’s outspoken CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday called sweeping U.S. stay-at-home restrictions to curtail the coronavirus outbreak “fascist” as the electric carmaker posted its third quarterly profit in a row.
SoftBank Group Corp said it sees a loss of around 700 billion yen ($6.6 billion) in the year ending March on the portion of its WeWork investment held outside the Vision Fund, extending the group’s expected net loss to 900 billion yen.
Some biotech stocks have been on fire during these COVID-19 driven times. Hardly a surprise, as these companies are at the forefront of finding a solution to the pandemic and bringing viable treatments, vaccines or adequate tests to market. Case in point: Vaccine maker BioNTech (BNTX), which has been mooted as the provider of a possible coronavirus vaccine, and has seen its shares rising 45% year-to-date.Yet, despite liking the company’s vaccine program, Project Lightspeed, JPMorgan’s Cory Kasimov believes the current valuation is just about right.Kasimov said, “We continue to view BNTX as a potentially disruptive company with access to multiple …read more […]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk assailed the social distancing measures in place over the past several weeks in the electric car-maker’s home state of California and across the country, which led to a weeks-long closure at the company’s flagship Fremont factory. …read more […]
Tesla Inc’s outspoken CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday called sweeping U.S. stay-at-home restrictions to curtail the coronavirus outbreak “fascist” as the electric carmaker posted its third quarterly profit in a row.
Asian equity markets were poised to gain on Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s rally after positive trial results of an experimental COVID-19 treatment, a U.S. Federal Reserve pledge to shore up the economy and a jump in oil prices.
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