Year: 2020

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 […]

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Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) has delivered another strong quarter driven by better-than-expected system placements and procedure volume. Shares in the robotic surgery company rose 2% in Tuesday’s after-hours trading, with the stock now up 11% year-to-date.Second quarter Non-GAAP EPS of $1.11 beat Street estimates by $0.62 while revenue of $852.1M beat forecasts by $215.26M, despite falling 22% year-over-year. Also encouraging was the number of the company’s daVinci systems shipped at 178 (down 3.5% year-over-year), versus the Street’s estimated 141. Procedure volume declined by 19% year-over-year, but was nevertheless an improvement on the consensus estimate of 29%.However, GAAP EPS of $0.57 missed …read more […]

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Shares in Snap Inc. (SNAP) dropped over 6% in extended market trading after its second-quarter loss widened and user growth figures disappointed.The stock declined to $23.17 in Tuesday’s after-market trading. Snap reported a net loss of $326 million, or 23 cents per share, in the quarter ended June, widening from $255.2 million, or 19 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, total revenue increased 17% to $454 million during the reported period.Daily active users (DAUs), a widely followed metric by investors and advertisers, increased 17% to 238 million in the second quarter year-on-year but fell short of analysts’ expectations …read more […]

As the trading session gets underway, stocks are pointing to yet another session of data and earnings for direction. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Oil in New York eased from a four-month high on signs of a surprise gain in U.S. crude stockpiles, raising fresh concerns about supply as many regions struggled to get the pandemic under control.The American Petroleum Institute reported crude inventories rose by 7.54 million barrels last week, according to people familiar with the figures, which would be the biggest increase since May if confirmed by government data on Wednesday. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump warned that the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. will probably worsen before improving.Oil surged Tuesday after European Union leaders agreed on a giant stimulus package …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — A plan by President Xi Jinping hatched in late 2018 to liberalize China’s constrained stock market and prevent home-grown tech firms from flocking to New York is turning out to be a prescient move.The reforms took shape in the form of a new, relatively small venue in Shanghai, called the Star board, which started trading exactly a year ago. The goal was mild in scale compared with other major stock markets, but radical by China’s standards: Minimize red tape and relax tight controls on what kind of companies could list, and how much their shares could move. More …read more […]

Snap has focused on helping advertisers increase sales directly from its ads, which boosted revenue growth even as many brands have been cutting marketing budgets due to the pandemic. Snap has positioned itself as a safe ad platform focused on friendly interactions, as more than 1,000 companies have paused ads on larger rival Facebook Inc due to concerns about hate speech. “The growing focus on brand safety and privacy across the entire industry places us in a unique position of strength as we have invested in these areas from the beginning of our business,” Snap Chief Executive Evan …read more […]

Shares of Atossa Therapeutics (ATOS) have done what shares of most companies in the hunt for coronavirus solutions have done in 2020 – appreciate. Since the turn of the year, there has been 171% of upside for the Seattle-based biotech firm.Despite the impressive gains, the micro-cap still has a market cap of only $39 million. Going by his revised outlook for Atossa, Maxim’s 5-star analyst Jason McCarthy believes the stock remains seriously undervalued.McCarthy recently doubled his price target from $4 to $8. The implication for investors? Upside of a very hefty 119%. There’s no change to McCarthy’s rating, which remains …read more […]

The coronavirus has hit the airline industry particularly hard. As long as COVID-19 rages, it is unlikely that there will be a meaningful resumption of normal services. In the meantime, airlines have taken drastic measures such as refinancing, taking on piles of extra debt, severe cost-cutting initiatives and furloughing employees, in order to remain afloat.But apart from extreme courses of action, the industry will need to be creative to keep the wolf from the door. A new partnership between American Airlines (AAL) and JetBlue (JBLU) could be the first of many collaborations over the coming months.Although, new might not be …read more […]