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As President Joe Biden prepares to host a much-anticipated meeting on the U.S. debt ceiling with the country’s four top lawmakers, analysts are predicting there won’t be a deal yet on this issue.
If the meeting at the White House, scheduled for around 4 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, were to conclude with an agreement, that would be very surprising, said Chris Krueger, managing director at TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, in a note on Tuesday.
The…
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Novavax Inc. NVAX reported positive results from three vaccine trials on Tuesday, one targeting both COVID and flu, one for stand-alone flu and one a high-dose COVID vaccine. All three candidates produced robust immune response in Phase 2 trials and showed a reassuring preliminary safety profile, said Novavax. “The stand-alone influenza vaccine candidate achieved statistically significant hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) antibody responses 31 to 56% higher for all four strains compared to Fluad,” said the company. The highest-dose stand-alone COVID vaccine achieved statistically significant neutralization responses that…
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Palantir
Technology’s earnings looked like they had something for everyone, as the data-analytics software company forecast its first profitable year and talked up its artificial-intelligence prospects. However, some Wall Street analysts are focused on slowing revenue growth as a reason to be wary of the stock.
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The U.S. government will no longer be able to meet all its obligations in full and on time sometime between early June and early August if Congress doesn’t raise the federal borrowing limit, according to a new projection released Tuesday by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The think tank’s estimate falls in line with a projection that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made last week, as she said her department’s best estimate is that it could be unable to continue to satisfy all obligations “by early June, and potentially as early…
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Palantir Technologies Inc. delivered a surprise profit for the second quarter in a row Monday, while also topping revenue expectations, sending shares more than 20% higher in after-hours trading.
The software company reported first-quarter net income of $17 million, or 1 cent a share, whereas Palantir PLTR posted a loss of $101 million, or 5 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Analysts tracked by FactSet were expecting a loss of a penny a share on a GAAP basis. The stock closed with a 4.7% gain at $7.76 in Monday’s…
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President Joe Biden rolled out a plan on Monday that targets how airlines handle flight cancellations and significant delays that are within a carrier’s control.
Biden said his administration will propose a new regulation later this year that would require airlines to provide cash compensation in addition to refunds and amenities for stranded passengers.
“Airline…
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Oil demand is likely to hold up longer than many people expect during the anticipated transition to electric vehicles. And changes in the industry point to oilfield services companies as good long-term growth investments as offshore production ramps up.
Below is a list of oil producers and related companies favored by two analysts who have followed the industry for decades.
U.S….
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Foreign investors and businesspeople with exposure to China are becoming increasingly unnerved. And for good reason.
In March, Chinese authorities detained an employee of Japanese drug manufacturer Astellas Pharma JP:4503 ALPMY for alleged espionage violations. The Chinese seem confident in their case. Beijing’s ambassador to Japan said there was ample evidence of wrongdoing, and, despite the uproar, the Astellas employee remains detained.
That…
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-pepsi-dividend-stock-investing-3516ced1
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U.S. stocks recovered some ground on Friday, after four days of losses, as shares of regional banks rebounded and the main indexes received a boost from a strong April jobs and Apple’s better-than-forecast earnings.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 287 points, or 0.86%, to 33,128. It remains on track for a 1.5% weekly drop.
In…
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The pandemic opened the floodgates to telehealth. Now, many patients and doctors are curbing their enthusiasm for virtual care.
Four out of five primary-care doctors who had video visits with patients during the pandemic would prefer to provide just a small portion of care or no care at all via telemedicine in the future, according to a survey designed and analyzed by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published last month in Health Affairs, a peer-reviewed journal. And 60% of the doctors surveyed…
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The numbers: The U.S. created a stronger-than-expected 253,000 new jobs in April and wages rose sharply, indicating there’s still lot of demand for labor even as the economy slows.
The increase surpassed the 180,000 forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
The unemployment rate, what’s more, fell a tick to 3.4% from 3.5%,…
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The numbers: The U.S. created a stronger-than-expected 253,000 new jobs in April and wages rose sharply, indicating there’s still lot of demand for labor even as the economy slows.
The increase surpassed the 180,000 forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
The unemployment rate, what’s more, fell a tick to 3.4% from 3.5%,…
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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A gunman apparently firing at random killed eight people and wounded 14 in a series of villages in Serbia, authorities said, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect Friday after an all-night manhunt.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called Thursday’s shootings an attack on the whole nation — and said the person arrested wore a T-shirt with a pro-Nazi slogan on it but did not specify a motive.
The slayings came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital.
The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, Wednesday’s shooting was the first at a school in the country’s modern history.
The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Public figures, politicians and experts appeared successively on TV Friday, desperately seeking to explain the tragedies. The first made the country numb with grief, while the second heightened feelings of insecurity and anxiety over what might come next. As a nationwide period of mourning began, TV screens were filled with people wearing black and music was banned from the airwaves as well as in cafes and restaurants.
“This is a moment when a nation decides whether it will go along a healing path,” Actor Srdjan Timarov said on N1 television. “The only other way is to declare capitulation.”
Late Thursday, an attacker shot at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, south of the capital. Vučić said the assailant targeted people “wherever they were.”
“I heard some tak-tak-tak sounds,” recalled Milan Prokić, a resident of Dubona, near Mladenovac. Prokić said he first thought people were shooting to celebrate a birth, as is tradition in Serbia. “But it wasn’t that. Shame, great shame,” he added.
AP/Armin Durgut
Police said a suspect, identified by the initials U.B., was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Belgrade.
Authorities released a photo showing a young man in a police car in a blue T-shirt with the slogan “Generation 88” on it. The double eights are often used as shorthand for “Heil Hitler” since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Vučić said the suspect repeated the word “disparagement” but it wasn’t clear what that meant.
The president vowed to the nation in an address that the suspect “will never again see the light of the day.” He referred to the attack as an act of terror and announced tougher gun-control measures, on top of ones put forward by the government a day earlier.
He called for a moratorium on new licenses for all weapons in the next two years, a review of all current licenses, longer prison sentences for those who break the rules and “fierce” punishment for anyone with illegal weapons. But first police will offer an amnesty to encourage people to hand over illegal guns — an action that has had limited success in the past.
“We will disarm Serbia,” Vučić promised, saying the government would outline the new rules on Friday.
Before the second shooting, Serbia spent much of Thursday reeling. Students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to slain peers. Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes.
Wednesday’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar school also left seven people hospitalized, six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said Thursday.
Authorities have identified the shooter as Kosta Kecmanović and said he is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental hospital, and his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security.
Gun ownership is common in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: The country has one of the highest number of firearms per capita in the world. And guns are often fired into the air at celebrations in the region.
Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the number of weapons in Serbia, a highly divided country where convicted war criminals are frequently glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s, as well as ongoing economic hardship, could trigger such outbursts.
Dragan Popadić, a psychology professor at Belgrade University, told the Associated Press that the school shooting has exposed the level of violence present in society and caused a deep shock.
“People suddenly have been shaken into reality and the ocean of violence that we live in, how it has grown over time and how much our society has been neglected for decades,” he warned. “It is as if flashlights have been lit over our lives and we can no longer just mind our own business.”
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Apple Inc. on Thursday revealed surprise growth in its iPhone business during the first three months of the year, overcoming a shortfall in Mac revenue as the company promised investors billions more in dividends and stock repurchases.
Apple shares
AAPL,
rose 2.5% in extended trading.
The company reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $94.8 billion, down from $97.3 billion a year before, while analysts had been expecting $92.9 billion. Revenue for the iPhone category rose to $51.3 billion from $50.6 billion, with analysts surveyed by FactSet expecting a decline to $48.7 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on the earnings call that the iPhone growth was driven by “strong performance in emerging markets from South Asia and India to Latin America and the Middle East.”
The company recently opened its first two Apple stores in India, and Chief Executive Tim Cook noted opportunity in India.
“What I do see in India is a lot of people entering the middle class, and I’m hopeful that we can convince some number of them to buy an iPhone,” he said.
Apple logged net income of $24.2 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $25 billion, or $1.52 a share, in the year-prior quarter. Analysts were modeling $1.43 a share in earnings on average, according to FactSet.
Apple’s results arrived amid concern about the state of consumer-electronics spending, given worrisome third-party data points and cautious signals from players like Qualcomm Inc.
QCOM,
and DuPont de Nemours Inc.
DD,
See also: Qualcomm stock falls as backed up Apple iPhone inventory contributes to weak outlook
The company saw steep revenue declines in both the iPad and Mac categories. Sales of iPads fell to $6.7 billion from $7.6 billion a year ago and matched the FactSet consensus. Mac revenue sank to $7.2 billion from $10.4 billion, while analysts were looking for $7.8 billion.
The Mac segment was up against tough comparisons to a year-ago period that saw the “incredibly successful rollout of our M1 chips,” Cook noted. It’s “facing some macroeconomic and foreign exchange headwinds as well.”
Apple’s wearables, home and accessories category was essentially flat, with sales of $8.8 billion. The FactSet consensus called for $8.4 billion. The services segment showed growth, with revenue up to $20.9 billion from $19.8 billion, roughly in line with the FactSet consensus of $21.0 billion.
Maestri noted that “certain services offerings, such as digital advertising and mobile gaming, continue to be affected by the current macroeconomic environment,” though advertising, Apple Care and video set revenue records for the March quarter.
Executives shared some very big-picture views on recent financial-services initiatives, though without any financial specifics. Apple’s recently launched savings account, which has a 4.15% yield, has had an “incredible” initial response, while Apple Pay Later, a buy-now-pay-later product, has received “really good” feedback as well, they said.
Apple also announced Thursday that it was boosting its buyback program by $90 billion while upping its quarterly dividend by 4% to 24 cents a share. That compares to a $90 billion increase to the share-repurchase authorization and 5% dividend hike a year ago.
While Apple stopped giving traditional guidance at the start of the pandemic, Maestri said on the call that he expects June-quarter revenue growth to be similar to what was seen in the March quarter on a year-over-year basis, assuming a stable macroeconomic climate.
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Lyft Inc. on Thursday reported first-quarter results that beat expectations, but a forecast that fell just shy of analysts’ estimates weighed on the company’s stock.
Lyft shares LYFT fell 15% after hours. They had dropped 1.8% in the regular session to close at $10.69 after a six-day positive streak.
Lyft forecast second-quarter revenue of…
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Mullen Automotive Inc. is attracting more meme-like attention from retail investors than traditional meme stock darlings AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and GameStop Corp., according to an influential meme-stock trader.
The electric vehicle company’s stock has become the “meme go to” for retail investors, said the trader, who goes by the name Obi. The trader participates in the WallStreetBets group on Reddit under the user name Major-Access2321.
Obi, whose Making Easy Money YouTube channel has over 28,000 subscribers, said that Mullen
MULN,
is generating plenty of buzz across social media. “When it comes to meme stock world on Reddit, Twitter and now even Facebook, groups are popping up calling themselves the ‘MULN army’,” he told MarketWatch.
The trader said that “less and less” people are speaking about AMC Entertainment
AMC,
and GameStop
GME,
“More and more people are speaking about MULN … they call it the meme that makes sense,” he added.
Mullen shares have seen a dramatic spike in trading volume recently, with average trading volume of 1.1 billion shares Wednesday and 547.8 million shares over the past five days, according to FactSet data. The stock’s 65-day average trading volume is 279 million shares. Mullen ended Wednesday’s session down 21.1% on the company’s announcement of a reverse stock split.
Related: Mullen Automotive shares plunge on reverse stock split announcement
AMC’s stock ended Wednesday’s session up 4.4% on trading volume of 25.1 million shares, below its 65-day average trading volume of 35.4 million shares. GameStop’s stock closed up 1.7% Wednesday on trading volume of 3.2 million shares, below its 65-day average of 4.8 million shares.
The stock was down 18% on Thursday.
The over outlook for the EV market looks bright, according to Obi. “Retail feel like they have something special here with MULN,” he added.
On Wednesday Mullen Automotive Inc. announced that it will conduct the 1-for-25 reverse stock split as the electric-vehicle company looks to maintain its Nasdaq listing.
The stock will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the existing symbol “MULN” and will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis at market open Thursday.
In March, Mullen announced that the Nasdaq had approved the company’s request for a 180-day extension to meet the $1 minimum-bid-price requirement. On Sept. 7, 2022, the Nasdaq notified the company that its stock was not compliant with rules as it had traded below $1 for more than 30 days.
Related: After TOP Financial’s surge, influential meme-stock trader looks for next big opportunity
Mullen’s stock soared last year after Amazon.com Inc.’s
AMZN,
delivery partner placed an order for up to 600 cargo vans, and the company has since teamed up with Rapid Response Defense Systems to supply vans for federal government business.
In December, Mullen announced that it is partnering with Loop Global Inc. to build public and private EV-charging technology, infrastructure and network solutions. Earlier this year, Mullen joined forces with Qiantu Motors to launch what they called an EV supercar.
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Trading in shares of Icahn Enterprises LP was choppy Thursday amid the continued fallout from a short seller’s report that was critical of the investment arm of activist investor Carl Icahn.
The stock IEP was moving between gains and losses, but has lost 36% of its value and $6.5 billion of market cap this week in the wake of the report, which accused Icahn Enterprises of inflating its value. On Wednesday, the company said it is moving the release of first-quarter earnings to before market open on May 10. The earnings were…
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A unit of Johnson & Johnson is headed for the biggest initial public offering in more than a year after its shares were priced near the top of the expected range Wednesday evening.
Johnson & Johnson JNJ will charge $22 a share in the IPO for Kenvue, the companies said in a statement Wednesday evening. Kenvue, which is expected to begin trading Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker “KVUE,” will hold a wealth of consumer brands that includes Band-Aid, Tylenol and Listerine.
Johnson…
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