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Jack Ma Cedes Control of Fintech Giant Ant Group
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Tag: wholesale
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Macy’s stock slides as holiday lulls weigh on sales forecast and execs predict difficulties into 2023
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Shares of department-store chain Macy’s Inc. slid 8% in after-hours trading on Friday after the retailer gave a more downbeat forecast on its fourth-quarter sales, with management citing big “lulls” in the holiday-shopping season and saying customers would likely feel the squeeze from inflation into next year.
Executives said they expected those sales to land in the “low-end to mid-point” of prior expectations for between $8.161 billion to $8.401 billion. They said they expected adjusted earnings per share to be within its previously forecast range of $1.47 to $1.67.
“Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales were in line with our expectations, while the week leading up to and following Christmas were ahead,” Macy’s
M,
+2.64%
Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said in a statement. “However, the lulls of the non-peak holiday weeks were deeper than anticipated.”“Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data,” he continued, “we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly.”
Macy’s issued the sales and profit figures as Wall Street parses consumer behavior during the holiday season. Adobe on Thursday said online sales surpassed $210 billion and beat expectations. Costco Wholesale Corp., a day earlier, reported an increase in December sales, even though online sales fell.
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Costco stock rises as holiday sales gain even as online sales recede
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Costco Wholesale Corp. shares ticked higher in the extended session Thursday after the warehouse club reported a rise in holiday sales from a year ago, even as online sales pulled back.
Costco
COST,
-1.40%
said December sales rose 7% to $23.8 billion, up from $22.24 billion a year ago.For the 18 weeks ending Jan. 1, sales rose 7.6% to $81.16 billion, up from $76.34 billion in the year-ago period.
While same-store sales grew for each period, e-commerce sales declined. Total company same-store sales rose 5.5% for the month and 6.1% for the 18 weeks ending Jan. 1., while e-commerce sales declined 6.4% and 4.8%, respectively.
Costco shares rose more than 2% after hours, following a 1.4% decline to close the regular session at $450.19.
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Amazon confirms more than 18,000 layoffs, far more than originally expected
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Amazon.com Inc.’s
AMZN,
-0.79%
layoffs will affect more than 18,000 employees, the highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company as the industry pares back amid economic uncertainty.The Seattle-based company in November said that it was beginning layoffs among its corporate workforce, with cuts concentrated on its devices business, recruiting and retail operations. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported the cuts would total about 10,000 people. Thousands of those cuts began last year.
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As EU works to coordinate response to China’s COVID wave, Beijing and airlines are unhappy
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European Union officials were working Wednesday to coordinate a response to China’s current surge of COVID cases and were likely to agree on travel restrictions that may upset both Beijing and airlines.
The Chinese government has already slammed the countries that have imposed a COVID test requirement on passengers from China and has threatened countermeasures if more are introduced, the Associated Press reported.
EU Commission spokesman Tim McPhie said Wednesday that most EU nations are in favor of testing prior to departure and are seeking an official position later in the day.
There are concerns that China’s wave may allow for new, potentially more evasive and risky variants of the coronavirus to emerge, although so far, data are showing the variants circulating in China are already in Europe.
See also: Isolated and humiliated, Russia is biggest geopolitical threat of 2023: Eurasia Group
On Wednesday the International Air Transport Association, which represents some 300 airlines worldwide, lent its powerful voice to the protests.
“It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh.
“Research undertaken around the arrival of the omicron variant concluded that putting barriers in the way of travel made no difference to the peak spread of infections. At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days,” Walsh said.
EU nations are also expected to agree to test wastewater from planes flying in from China to determine whether it contains variants that are not yet prevalent in Europe.
As China reopens after nearly three years of isolation, the U.S. and several other countries will require travelers to show a negative COVID test. The Wall Street Journal explains why some pandemic restrictions are back and what they mean for people traveling to and from China. Photo: Nicola Marfisi/Avalon via ZUMA Press
In the U.S., the seven-day average for new COVID cases has continued to fall and stood at 60,417 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 10% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 8% to 44,504. The average for deaths was 310, down 24% from two weeks ago.
The New York Times tracker notes there is reason to believe current case and death counts could be artificially low, as the people who track those numbers take time off around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Hospitalization data are not typically affected by holiday reporting breaks.
The number of patients with COVID in intensive-care units rose 11% in two weeks, to 5,350. Meanwhile, the test-positivity rate climbed to 16% and has increased by 25% over the past two weeks. Higher test-positivity rates suggest many new COVID cases are not being counted, as results of at-home testing may not be reported to case trackers.
Overall, cases are currently rising in 17 states, led by Mississippi, where they have climbed 78% from two weeks ago. Measured on a per-capita basis, New Jersey and New York are faring the worst, along with several southern states, including Virginia, Mississippi and South Carolina.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• Shares of Lucira Health Inc.
LHDX,
-29.03%
more than quadrupled Tuesday after it submitted an application for emergency-use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter use of a molecular COVID-19 and flu test, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The test was granted emergency-use authorization for point-of-care use in a healthcare setting in November. The company now “intends to make the test broadly available to consumers both online as well as in pharmacies.”• Salesforce Inc.
CRM,
+3.57%
has become the latest big tech player to say it hired too aggressively during the COVID pandemic; it is now planning to lay off about 10% of its workforce, MarketWatch’s Emily Bary reported. The company will also exit some real estate and cut back on office space, it disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plan is aimed at reducing operating costs, boosting operating margins and driving “profitable growth.” “As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that,” the company’s co-chief executive, Marc Benioff, said in a letter to employees that was also filed with the SEC. The company had 73,541 employees as of Jan. 31, 2022, according to its last annual filing with the SEC.Read: Here are the companies in the layoffs spotlight; Salesforce joins Intel, Google, HP, Amazon, Cisco
The recent headlines about tech layoffs don’t seem to match broader economic indicators, which show a strong job market and a historically low unemployment rate. The Wall Street Journal’s Gunjan Banerji explains the disconnect. Illustration: Ali Larkin
• Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
-2.20%
has gone from being a COVID darling to a “show-me” launch story, according to Bank of America analysts, who downgraded the stock to neutral from buy on Wednesday, citing declining COVID revenues and uncertainty about how new products will perform. Analysts are expecting revenue from Pfizer’s COVID vaccine Comirnaty and its antiviral Paxlovid to decline by about $32 billion from 2022, wider than the consensus number of a decline of $25 billion. “While new launches can partially address the $17 billion LOE (loss of exclusivity) hole in 2025 to 2030, longer term growth is unclear,” the analysts wrote in a note to clients.Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 666.8 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 6.69 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 100.8 million cases and 1,094,010 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.1 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 47 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 15.1% of the overall population.
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Tesla stock wipes out three-day bounce, falls to lowest price in more than 2 years
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It has taken just one day for Tesla Inc.’s stock to erase the entire bounce it enjoyed over the last three days trading sessions of 2022, as disappointing deliveries data helped trigger the biggest selloff in more than two years.
The stock’s
TSLA,
-12.24%
Tuesday drop knocked the electric vehicle maker’s market capitalization to 15th on the list of most valuation S&P 500 index companies.On Tuesday, Tesla’s market cap fell below that of consumer products company Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
+0.01% ,
with a current market cap of $359.18 billion, and was just below Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-2.05%
at $352.15 billion, according to FactSet data. Tesla sat just above Chevron Corp.
CVX,
-3.06% ,
which was at $336.43 billion. (See list of S&P 500’s 20 most valuable companies as of Tuesday’s closing prices below.)Tesla’s stock took a $15.08, or 12.2% dive, to $108.10 on Tuesday, to lead the S&P 500’s
SPX,
-0.40%
decliners, after the company reported over the weekend that fourth-quarter deliveries that came up short of expectations for the third quarter in a row. It suffered the biggest one-day decline since it plummeted 21.1% on Sept. 8, 2020, and closed at the lowest price since Aug. 13, 2020.With about 3.16 billion shares outstanding as of Oct. 18, the stock’s decline shaved about $47.62 billion off Tesla’s market cap, to bring it down to $341.35 billion. That’s a far cry from the peak market cap of $1.24 trillion reached exactly one-year ago.
After the stock hit the deepest oversold reading in its history based on the widely followed Relative Strength Index momentum indicator on Dec. 27, following the longest losing streak in more than four years, it ran up $14.08, or 12.9%, over the past three days.
If there’s a bright side to Tuesday’s stock selloff, it’s that even though the price fell below the Dec. 27 closing price, the RSI ended the day at 24.86, which is up from the Dec. 27 record low of 16.56.
That could be a preliminary sign of what chart watchers call “bullish technical divergence,” which is when prices make lower lows while the RSI makes a higher low. It’s still rather early to make that determination, however, as the stock needs to start bouncing again to see if RSI bottoms above the previous low.
Market caps of the Top 20 most valuable S&P 500 companies:
-
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
-3.74%
: $1.99 trillion. -
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-0.10%
: $1.79 trillion. -
Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
+1.01%
GOOG,
+1.09%
: $1.16 trillion. -
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+2.17%
: $875.51 billion. -
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
BRK.B,
+0.33%
BRK.A,
+0.17%
: $683.72 billion. -
UnitedHealth Group Inc.
UNH,
-2.18%
: $484.59 billion. -
Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+0.87%
: $465.88 billion. -
Exxon Mobil Corp.
XOM,
-3.44%
: $438.64 billion. -
Visa Inc.
V,
-0.18%
: $427.57 billion. -
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM,
+0.76%
: $396.34 billion. -
Walmart Inc.
WMT,
+1.28%
: $387.26 billion. -
Eli Lilly and Co.
LLY,
-0.23%
: $360.29 billion. - Procter & Gamble Co.: $359.18 billion.
- Nvidia Corp.: $352.15 billion.
- Tesla Inc.: $341.35 billion.
- Chevron Corp: $336.43 billion.
-
Mastercard Inc.
MA,
-0.27%
: $333.43 billion. -
Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+3.66%
: $331.58 billion. -
Home Depot Inc.
HD,
+0.02%
: $321.97 billion. -
Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
+0.04%
: $287.74 billion.
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Apple Inc.
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AMD Stock Should Benefit From Next-Generation Computer Chips
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These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron’s, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts’ thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron’s. Some of the reports’ issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.
Advanced Micro Devices AMD-Nasdaq
Buy (four stars out of five) • Price $64.52 on Dec. 23
by CFRA
Our Buy recommendation reflects our expectation for significant share gains on the central-processing-unit data-center side from the ramp-up of AMD’s next-generation EPYC processor, greater momentum for AMD’s graphics processing units, and our expectation for balance sheet improvement.
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COVID-related ICU patients rise to 5-month high above 5,000—are new cases really falling?
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While many have been focused on the apparent explosion of COVID cases in China, and the lack of reliable data from China’s government, there are signs suggesting the U.S. situation is also getting worse even as case counts and deaths are falling.
At first look, initial fears of another COVID surge in the U.S. over the holidays may be overblown. About a week after the year-end holiday gatherings began, the seven-day average of new COVID cases fell to a more than three-week low of 58,354 on Thursday, down 9% from two weeks ago and down 17% from a recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve, according to a New York Times tracker.
And the daily average for deaths fell has fallen to a three-week low of 355, and has dropped 5% in two weeks.
But as the NYT tracker has been warning, case and death counts could be “artificially low” this week, as officials who track those numbers take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Therefore, hospitalization data, which is typically not affected by holidays, should remain more reliable.
And by that measure, the numbers are getting worrisome.
The daily average of hospitalizations rose to 41,620 on Thursday, up 3% from two weeks ago but also the highest number seen since mid-August.
There are 29 states that have seen hospitalizations increase from two weeks ago, including 20 states that have seen double-digit percentage increases, led by South Carolina at 54%, West Virginia at 52% and Louisiana at 47%.
The number of severe COVID cases is also seeing a troubling rise, the daily average of COVID-related patients in intensive care units (ICUs) climbed to 5,080 on Thursday. That’s up 10% from two weeks ago, and the most seen since July 30.
The New York Times
Another sign that the fall in case counts is artificial is that the test positivity rate has been rising, to a four-month high above 14% on Thursday, with 41 states seeing double-digit positivity rates.
“Higher test positivity rates are a sign that many infections are not reported — even if they are tested at home. This results in a more severe undercount of cases,” the NYT tracker said.
The New York Times
Stay up to date on COVID news through MarketWatch’s daily “Coronavirus Update” column.
Meanwhile in China, amid a “lack of adequate and transparent” data from China’s government, there is reason to believe the situation will still get a lot worse before it gets better.
U.K. health firm Airfinity estimates that new daily COVID cases in China is currently running at about 1.8 million, based on data from China’s regional provinces, and on new-case trajectories from areas that also lifted zero-COVID policies, such as Hong Kong.
That case number is expected to more than double, to about 3.7 million a day, in mid-January, Airfinity estimates, before another surge in March takes the number up to about 4.2 million per day.
As a result of the concerns over surging case counts, Spain joined the growing number of countries that are requiring COVID tests for air passengers arriving from China, as the Associated Press reported. This comes after the European Union said Thursday that it is “assessing” the situation in China.
The U.S. will also require those arriving from China to take a PCR test, starting Jan. 5, while Japan started requiring a test on Friday. Other countries requiring a test for air passengers from China include Italy, India and South Korea.
The BBC reported that the U.K. was set to announce that travelers will need to show a negative COVID test before they board a plane from China.
In other COVID news, China’s National Medical Products Administration has given emergency approval to Merck & Co. Inc.’s
MRK,
-0.33%
COVID antiviral molnupiravir. That joins Pfizer Inc.’s
PFE,
-0.96%
Paxlovid, which has already been approved for use in China. Merck’s stock, which fell 0.4% in afternoon trading Friday, has soared 44.0% in 2022, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.88%
has lost 9.4%.Novavax Inc.
NVAX,
+0.21%
said Friday that it has initiated a Phase 2 trial for its COVID-19-Influenza Combination (CIC) vaccine candidate in people aged 50 through 80. “We believe that like influenza, COVID-19 will also be seasonal moving forward, and that there is room in the market for new alternatives to provide better protection against the impact of influenza, particularly in older adults, and to explore the potential to combine this with protection from COVID,” said Chief Executive Stanley Erck. Novavax’s stock, which eased 0.3% Friday, has plunged 93.2% year to date while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
-1.03%
has dropped 20.1%.[ad_2]
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These 20 stocks were the biggest losers of 2022
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This has been the year of reckoning for Big Tech stocks — even those of companies that have continued to grow sales by double digits.
Below is a list of the 20 stocks in the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.72%
that have declined the most in 2022.First, here’s how the 11 sectors of the benchmark index have performed this year:
S&P 500 sector 2022 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31, 2021 Energy 57.8% 9.6 11.1 Utilities -0.5% 18.8 20.4 Consumer Staples -2.7% 20.9 21.8 Healthcare -3.2% 17.4 17.2 Industrials -6.7% 18.0 20.8 Financials -12.1% 11.7 14.6 Materials -13.4% 15.6 16.6 Real Estate -27.7% 16.2 24.2 Information Technology -28.8% 19.6 28.1 Consumer Discretionary -37.4% 20.7 33.2 Communication Services -40.4% 14.0 20.8 S&P 500 -19.2% 16.5 21.4 Source: FactSet The energy sector has been the only one to show a gain in 2022, and it has been a whopper, even as West Texas Intermediate crude oil
CL.1,
+0.41%
has given up most of its gains from earlier in the year. Here’s why investors are still confident in the supply/demand setup for oil and energy stocks.Looking at the worst-performing sectors, you might wonder why the consumer discretionary and communication services sectors have fared worse than information-technology, the core tech sector. One reason is that S&P Dow Jones Indices can surprise investors with its sector choices. The consumer discretionary sector includes Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+0.70%
and Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-1.17% ,
which has fallen nearly 50% this year. The communications sector includes Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-1.21% ,
along with Match Group Inc.
MTCH,
+0.50% ,
which is down 69% for 2022, and Netflix Inc.
NFLX,
-0.44% ,
which is down 52% this year.There have been many reasons easy to cite for Big Tech’s decline, such as a questionable change in strategy for Facebook’s holding company, Meta, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has put so much of the company’s resources into developing a new world that most people don’t wish to enter, at least yet. Meta’s shares were down 64% for 2022 through Dec. 29.
You might also blame the Twitter-related antics and sales of Tesla shares by CEO Elon Musk for the 65% decline in the electric-vehicle maker’s stock this year. But Tesla had a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 120.3 at the end of 2021, while the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.72%
traded for 21.4 times its weighted forward earnings estimate, according to FactSet. Those P/E ratios have now declined to 21.7 and 16.4, respectively. So Tesla no longer appears to be a very expensive stock, especially for a company that increased its vehicle deliveries by 42% in the third quarter from a year earlier.Analysts polled by FactSet expect Tesla’s stock to double during 2023. It nearly made this list of 20 EV stocks expected to rebound the most in 2023.
The worst-performing S&P 500 stocks of 2022
Here are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 that fell the most for 2022 through the close on Dec. 29.
Company Ticker 2022 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 32, 2021 Generac Holdings Inc. GNRC,
-0.84% -71.4% 13.7 30.2 Match Group Inc. MTCH,
+0.50% -68.9% 20.1 48.5 Align Technology Inc. ALGN,
-0.52% -67.7% 27.4 48.7 Tesla Inc. TSLA,
+0.70% -65.4% 21.7 120.3 SVB Financial Group SIVB,
-0.38% -65.4% 10.8 23.0 Catalent Inc. CTLT,
-0.40% -64.6% 13.0 32.5 Meta Platforms Inc. Class A META,
-1.21% -64.2% 14.7 23.5 Signature Bank SBNY,
-0.34% -64.1% 6.2 18.6 PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL,
-0.01% -62.6% 14.8 36.0 V.F. Corp. VFC,
+0.15% -62.5% 11.9 20.4 Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Series A WBD,
-1.64% -59.9% N/A 7.5 Carnival Corp. CCL,
-0.23% -59.8% 38.1 N/A Stanley Black & Decker Inc. SWK,
-0.42% -59.8% 17.0 15.9 Lumen Technologies Inc. LUMN,
-1.79% -57.8% 7.7 7.8 Zebra Technologies Corp. Class A ZBRA,
-0.44% -56.7% 14.5 30.1 Dish Network Corp. Class A DISH,
-0.96% -56.5% 8.6 10.9 Caesars Entertainment Inc. CZR,
+0.24% -55.7% 51.4 144.5 Lincoln National Corp. LNC,
+0.26% -55.1% 3.4 6.2 Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD,
-0.97% -55.0% 17.8 43.1 Seagate Technology Holdings PLC STX,
-0.55% -53.1% 15.0 12.4 Source: FactSet Click on the tickers for more information about the companies.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Another way of measuring the biggest stock-market losers of 2022
It is one thing to have a large decline based on the share price, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. How much of a decline have investors seen in the holdings of their shares during the year? The S&P 500’s total market capitalization declined to $31.66 trillion as of Dec. 28 (the most recent figure available) from $40.36 trillion at the end of 2021, according to FactSet.
Shareholders of these companies have suffered the largest declines in market cap during 2022.
Company Ticker 2022 market capitalization change ($bil) 2022 price change Apple Inc. AAPL,
-0.63% -$851 -27.0% Amazon.com Inc. AMZN,
-1.17% -$832 -49.5% Microsoft Corp. MSFT,
-1.15% -$728 -28.3% Tesla Inc. TSLA,
+0.70% -$677 -65.4% Meta Platforms Inc. Class A META,
-1.21% -$465 -64.2% Nvidia Corp. NVDA,
-1.37% -$376 -50.3% PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL,
-0.01% -$141 -62.6% Netflix Inc. NFLX,
-0.44% -$138 -51.7% Walt Disney Co. DIS,
-1.62% -$123 -43.7% Salesforce Inc. CRM,
-0.96% -$118 -47.8% Source: FactSet So there is your surprise for today: Apple is this year’s biggest stock-market loser.
Don’t miss: Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices
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China turns a corner on COVID as it lifts quarantines for foreigners
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China has turned a corner in its zero-Covid policy, lifting quarantines for foreign travelers from early next year, but that has come with cost as cases are surging and hospitals are packed.
The National Health Commission said over the weekend that it will drop the COVID-19 quarantine requirement for passengers arriving in China from abroad, starting Jan. 8. That was a major step in China’s lifting of the zero-COVID policy that have kept foreigners locked out, and its citizens locked in, for more than 2 1/2 years.
“It feels like China has turned the corner,” said Colm Rafferty, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, in a statement, as the Associated Press reported.
While many welcome the lifting of the zero-COVID policy, it has also triggered a surge in cases and has led to hospitals in many smaller cities and towns being overwhelmed. The jump in severe cases comes as China’s health authorities struggle to vaccinate the elderly, amid fears of potential side effects.
In other China COVID news, China Meheco Group Co., which distributes Pfizer Inc.’s
PFE,
-1.35%
Paxlovid COVID-19 vaccine in China, said over the weekend that Paxlovid can only be purchased at hospitals. That limits broader sales of the drug, including through e-commerce channels.Back in the U.S., the latest data showed that the daily average of new cases and deaths have slipped during the Christmas holiday weekend, while hospitalizations have leveled off.
The seven-day average of new cases was 66,014 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down from 70,508 on Dec. 24, and down 1% from two weeks ago.
However, case counts could be artificially low during as officials who track the numbers take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Also, rising test positivity rates suggest many new COVID cases are not reported, as many who test at home don’t report results to health officials.
The daily-average test positivity rate climbed to a four-month high of 14% on Monday, up 14% from two weeks ago.
COVID-related hospitalizations dipped to 40,156 on Monday from 40,969 on Saturday, but had ticked up 3% from two weeks ago. Meanwhile, COVID patients in intensive care units (ICUs) increased to a 4 1/2-month high of 4,931 on Monday, up 11% from two weeks ago.
The daily average of deaths eased to 426 on Monday from 428 on Christmas Eve, and has declined 9% in two weeks.
The number of Americans who have been fully vaccinated was 229.99 million, or 69% of the total population, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while only 14.6% of Americans have received the updated (bivalent) booster dose.
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Eat, drink and be merry: Here’s where shoppers have been spending the most money this holiday season
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Restaurants are set to become the biggest winners of a holiday season that could turn out to be the most normalized since the onset of the pandemic.
That’s according to a new Mastercard SpendingPulse survey released on Monday, which showed spending at dining establishments surging 15.1% over the 2021 holiday period. Total retail expenditures for the Nov. 1–to–Dec. 24 period in 2022 rose 7.6%, with in-store spending up 6.8% and online spending up 10.6%.
Restaurant spending beat out several other categories, such as apparel, where spending was up 4.4% from 2021, and electronics and jewelry, where a respective 5.3% and 5.4% less were spent, and department stores, which saw spending rise 1%.
“This holiday retail season looked different than years past,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard and former CEO and chairman of Saks Inc. “Retailers discounted heavily but consumers diversified their holiday spending to accommodate rising prices and an appetite for experiences and festive gatherings postpandemic.”
Government data for November showed consumer spending was up just 0.1%, reflecting cautiousness among households and price cutting by retailers to lure those hesitant shoppers in. But the data also showed more spending on holiday recreation and travel, expected to go in the books as a busy season even if deadly winter storm may have wreaked havoc on the plans of many Americans over the Christmas weekend.
Of course, even as some merrymakers felt confident enough to make more plans and see more friends and family this year, the virus of course continues to cause illness and death. The U.S. reported 70,000 newly diagnosed cases for the first time since September on Thursday, while 422 people died of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
Don’t miss: As COVID cases rise, how to steer clear of viruses during the holiday season
Also see: 4 tips for staying healthy while traveling during this ‘tripledemic’ cold and flu season
The Mastercard SpendingPulse data measure in-store and online retail sales for all payment forms and are not inflation-adjusted.
As for the companies that might be benefiting from that increased traffic, the year-end cheer probably won’t be enough to make a dent in what has been a difficult year with would-be consumers juggling worries over inflation, rising interest rates and a war in Europe.
The Invesco Dynamic Leisure & Entertainment exchange-traded fund
PEJ,
+0.79% ,
whose holdings include Chipotle Mexican Grill
CMG,
+0.32% ,
McDonald’s
MCD,
+0.68%
and First Watch Restaurant Group
FWRG,
+0.42% ,
has gained 6.5% to date in the fourth quarter and is down 20% for the year as of Thursday. The broad benchmark S&P 500
SPX,
+0.59%
is poised for a nearly 20% loss in 2022.Read: How a Santa Claus rally, or lack thereof, sets the stage for the stock market in first quarter
And: Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices
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Cheap? Maybe. But These Stocks Have Been Dead Money for Decades
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Cheesecake Factory appears to be “running the same play,” wrote J.P. Morgan analyst John Ivankoe in a recent restaurant industry outlook. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment—the stock, he noted, trades where it did in 2004, adjusted for splits.
Why the long stall-out? My first thought was that maybe hitting the mall for a hypercaloric sit-down meal off a menu the size of a Gutenberg Bible has fallen out of favor over the years. But no: Sales have bounced back and then some from the Covid pandemic, with plenty of takeout business and dessert orders. The average
Cheesecake Factory
(ticker: CAKE) restaurant does more than $10 million in yearly sales, or twice as much as an Olive Garden.[ad_2]
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Federal spending bill’s pandemic provisions: more public health data, no investigation into COVID’s origin
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COVID-19 cases are once again rising in the U.S., but how prepared are we for the next pandemic?
That’s a question worth asking. The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill presented by lawmakers on Tuesday includes a pandemic preparedness package, which has provisions that aim to build up the stockpile of drugs and medical supplies, strengthen how the U.S. can predict, model and forecast infectious disease threats, and test out a loan repayment plan for workers with expertise in infectious diseases and emergency preparedness.
The package does not include a task force that would investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 or the $9 billion that President Joe Biden requested to address the ongoing pandemic.
“We are not fixing the things that led to a bad response over COVID, and we’re facing a serious possibility that new variants of concern could arise in China,” Dr. Zeke Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, told Axios.
COVID news to know:
- Masks are coming back. Oakland is now requiring masks in government buildings, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, while New York City Mayor Eric Adams wore a mask on Tuesday during a press briefing telling New Yorkers to take precautions against circulating viruses. “The mayor is signaling to you that it is the socially conscious thing to do right now,” he said, according to the New York Times.
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Germany sending COVID shots to China. Germany said Wednesday that it has shipped doses of the vaccine developed by BioNTech
BNTX,
+1.44%
and Pfizer
PFE,
+0.74%
to China, to be administered to Germans who live there, according to the Associated Press. The vaccine is not authorized for use in China.
- At least 67,000 people in the U.S. are testing positive every day. That’s 24% higher than it was two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker. COVID hospitalization and deaths continue to increase, as well, with about 40,000 people in the hospital and 407 people dying every day. At the beginning of December, about 250 deaths were reported every day.
- Few seniors in the U.S. are getting a booster. Nearly 95% of all Americans who are 65 years old and older got the primary series of COVID shots. But only 36% have opted to get the new bivalent boosters, which equally protect against the original strain of the virus and the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. The rationale? They aren’t sure it works, can’t find it, or didn’t know it was available, according to the New York Times.
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Nike stock jumps more than 10% as earnings, sales destroy expectations
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Nike Inc.’s stock spiked more than 13% in extended trading Tuesday after the sporting-goods retailer reported early holiday earnings and sales are tracking solidly higher than Wall Street expected, though inventories remain high and a forecast could still loom.
Nike
NKE,
+0.16%
reported fiscal second-quarter net earnings of $1.33 billion, or 85 cents a share, compared with net earnings of 83 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Revenue was $13.32 billion, up 17% from $11.36 billion a year ago for the sneaker maker in the quarter, which ended Nov. 30.Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected on average net earnings of 64 cents a share on revenue of $12.58 billion.
Nike executives did not provide a third-quarter forecast in their announcement, though Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend said in a conference call he expects annual revenue grow in the the “low teens.” In an earlier statement, Chief Executive John Donahoe said the results “give us confidence in delivering the year as our competitive advantages continue to fuel our momentum,” while Friend added, “We are on track to deliver on our operational and financial goals.”
In a conference call late Tuesday, Donahoe noted a rebound of business in China and improving inventory levels because of strong consumer demand.
Nike announced the results amid a daunting confluence of slackening consumer spending, foreign-exchange headwinds and an elevated promotional environment, Jefferies says in a research note. In September, Nike shares tumbled after executives said markdowns on the retailer’s products would squeeze margins, and they expected clothing competitors to keep slicing prices through at least the end of the year.
Read more: Inventory concerns are pounding Nike’s stock
With consumers buying fewer clothes, Nike and other retailers have shouldered swelling inventories, though executives at Nike insist the level of excess goods likely peaked in North America this summer. In Tuesday’s report, Nike reported inventories of $9.3 billion, up 43% from the same quarter a year ago. Analysts on average were projecting inventories of $8.83 billion, according to FactSet.
“The market is focused on progress to resolution of FY23 inventory issues as a set up to a strong margin recovery” in fiscal 2024, Stifel analysts said in a note last week.
Shares of Nike have declined 38% this year, while the broader S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.10%
is down 20%.[ad_2]
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FIFA rebuffed Zelensky’s offer to share message of peace at World Cup final, report says
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World soccer’s governing body FIFA rebuffed an offer from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to share a message of world peace at the World Cup final, according to a CNN report.
Citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that Zelensky’s office offered an appearance via video link prior to kickoff at Sunday’s final. Defending World Cup champion France takes on Argentina in the match at Lusail Stadium, several miles north of the Qatari capital Doha.
The source told CNN that Zelensky’s office was surprised by the negative response. It’s unclear if the message was to be delivered live, or taped, the report said. “We thought FIFA wanted to use its platform for the greater good,” the source was quoted as having told CNN, reportedly adding that talks between Ukraine and FIFA are ongoing.
See: Qatar World Cup controversy means sponsors are walking a tightrope
MarketWatch has reached out to FIFA and Zelensky’s office with requests for comment.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelensky has used high-profile video addresses to rally international support for his embattled nation. These have included addresses to the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. Congress, Britain’s House of Commons, the German Bundestag, the European Parliament and a G-20 summit, as well as video-link appearances at the Grammys and the Cannes Film Festival.
The last World Cup was held in Russia, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance as France defeated Croatia 4-2 in the final. (FIFA, controversially, announced its host-country selections for 2018 and 2022 — Russia and Qatar — on the same December day in 2010.)
The 2022 tournament is perhaps the most controversial in World Cup history, with Qatar facing a barrage of criticism over its treatment of migrant workers and its approach to LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
Now read: British band the Farm blocks McDonald’s from using hit song in Qatar World Cup ad
The criticism of Qatar, the first Arab nation to host a World Cup, reached a crescendo before the tournament kicked off last month. During a press conference on the eve of the opening game, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, launched into a lengthy defense of the decision to hold the tournamentin Qatar and accused the West of “hypocrisy.”
This World Cup is also the first to take place during the northern hemisphere’s winter. Traditionally, the tournament takes place in June and July, but this year’s tournament was moved to minimize the impact of Qatar’s searing heat.
See: For Budweiser, Qatar World Cup has been a tale of tough logistics and quick thinking
Branding experts have observed that this controversial World Cup poses challenges for the big-name corporations involved in the event. FIFA’s list of partners includes U.S. corporate titans Coca-Cola Co.
KO,
-0.57%
and Visa Inc.
V,
-0.49% ,
who are both involved in the Qatar event. McDonald’s Corp.
MCD,
-2.06%
and Crypto.com are also World Cup sponsors.The tournament’s beer sponsor, Budweiser, an Anheuser-Busch InBev
BUD,
-0.18%
brand, has had a particularly eventful several weeks in Qatar. In an abrupt reversal just two days before the soccer showpiece kicked, Qatar organizers banned beer sales in the tournament’s eight stadiums.The reversal of that decision appeared to take Budweiser by surprise, with the company tweeting “Well, this is awkward …” before deleting the post. Budweiser quickly shrugged off the beer ban and promised a huge victory party for the country that wins the soccer showpiece.
Fox Sports, which is owned by Fox Corp.
FOX,
-0.21% ,
a sister company of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones’s parent company, News Corp
NWSA,
+0.28% ,
holds English-language broadcast rights in the U.S. to the Qatar World Cup.[ad_2]
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Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices
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Following a sharp and sustained rise in interest rates, U.S. stocks have taken a broad beating this year.
But 2023 may bring very different circumstances.
Below are lists of analysts’ favorite stocks among the benchmark S&P 500
SPX,
the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index
MID
and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index
SML
that are expected to rise the most over the next year. Those lists are followed by a summary of opinions of all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA.Stocks rallied on Dec. 13 when the November CPI report showed a much slower inflation pace than economists had expected. Investors were also anticipating the Federal Open Market Committee’s next monetary policy announcement on Dec. 14. The consensus among economists polled by FactSet is for the Federal Reserve to raise the federal funds rate by 0.50% to a target range of 4.50% to 4.75%.
Read: 5 things to watch when the Fed makes its interest-rate decision
A 0.50% increase would be a slowdown from the four previous increases of 0.75%. The rate began 2022 in a range of zero to 0.25%, where it had sat since March 2020.
A pivot for the Fed Reserve and the possibility that the federal funds rate will reach its “terminal” rate (the highest for this cycle) in the near term could set the stage for a broad rally for stocks in 2023.
Wall Street’s large-cap favorites
Among the S&P 500, 92 stocks are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts working for brokerage firms. That number itself is interesting — at the end of 2021, 93 of the S&P 500 had this distinction. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has declined 16% in 2022, with all sectors down except for energy, which has risen 53%, and the utilities sector, which his risen 1% (both excluding dividends).
Here are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 with at least 75% “buy” or equivalent ratings that analysts expect to rise the most over the next year, based on consensus price targets:
Company Ticker Industry Closing price – Dec. 12 Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share “buy” ratings Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12 EQT Corp. EQT Oil and Gas Production $36.91 $59.70 62% 78% 69% Catalent Inc. CTLT Pharmaceuticals $45.50 $72.42 59% 75% -64% Amazon.com Inc. AMZN Internet Retail $90.55 $136.02 50% 91% -46% Global Payments Inc. GPN Misc. Commercial Services $99.64 $147.43 48% 75% -26% Signature Bank SBNY Regional Banks $122.73 $180.44 47% 78% -62% Salesforce Inc. CRM Software $133.11 $195.59 47% 80% -48% Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. Class A BIO Medical Specialties $418.28 $591.00 41% 100% -45% Zoetis Inc. Class A ZTS Pharmaceuticals $152.86 $212.80 39% 87% -37% Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL Airlines $34.77 $48.31 39% 90% -11% Diamondback Energy Inc. FANG Oil and Gas Production $134.21 $182.33 36% 84% 24% Caesars Entertainment Inc CZR Casinos/ Gaming $50.27 $67.79 35% 81% -46% Alphabet Inc. Class A GOOGL Internet Software/ Services $93.31 $125.70 35% 92% -36% Halliburton Co. HAL Oilfield Services/ Equipment $34.30 $45.95 34% 86% 50% Alaska Air Group Inc. ALK Airlines $45.75 $61.08 34% 93% -12% Targa Resources Corp. TRGP Gas Distributors $70.42 $93.95 33% 95% 35% Charles River Laboratories International Inc. CRL Misc. Commercial Services $201.94 $269.25 33% 88% -46% ServiceNow Inc. NOW Information Technology Services $401.64 $529.83 32% 92% -38% Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO Software $102.61 $135.04 32% 79% -42% EOG Resources Inc. EOG Oil and Gas Production $124.06 $158.24 28% 82% 40% Southwest Airlines Co. LUV Airlines $38.94 $49.56 27% 76% -9% Source: FactSet Most of the companies on the S&P 500 list expected to soar in 2023 have seen large declines in 2022. But the company at the top of the list, EQT Corp.
EQT,
is an exception. The stock has risen 69% in 2022 and is expected to add another 62% over the next 12 months. Analysts expect the company’s earnings per share to double during 2023 (in part from its expected acquisition of THQ), after nearly a four-fold EPS increase in 2022.Shares of Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN
are expected to soar 50% over the next year, following a decline of 46% so far in 2022. If the shares were to rise 50% from here to the price target of $136.02, they would still be 18% below their closing price of 166.72 at the end of 2021.Read: Here’s why Amazon is Citi’s top internet stock idea
You can see the earnings estimates and more for any stock in this article by clicking on its ticker.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Mid-cap stocks expected to rise the most
The lists of favored stocks are limited to those covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet.
Among components of the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index, there are 84 stocks with at least 75% “buy” ratings. Here at the 20 expected to rise the most over the next year:
Company Ticker Industry Closing price – Dec. 12 Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share “buy” ratings Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12 Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. ARWR Biotechnology $31.85 $69.69 119% 83% -52% Lantheus Holdings Inc. LNTH Medical Specialties $54.92 $102.00 86% 100% 90% Progyny Inc. PGNY Misc. Commercial Services $31.21 $55.57 78% 100% -38% Coherent Corp. COHR Electronic Equipment/ Instruments $35.41 $60.56 71% 84% -48% Exelixis Inc. EXEL Biotechnology $16.08 $26.07 62% 81% -12% Darling Ingredients Inc. DAR Food: Specialty/ Candy $61.17 $97.36 59% 93% -12% Perrigo Co. PLC PRGO Pharmaceuticals $31.83 $49.25 55% 100% -18% Mattel Inc. MAT Recreational Products $17.39 $26.58 53% 87% -19% ACI Worldwide Inc. ACIW Software $20.75 $31.40 51% 83% -40% Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp. MODG Recreational Products $21.99 $32.91 50% 83% -20% Dycom Industries Inc. DY Engineering and Construction $86.03 $128.13 49% 100% -8% Travel + Leisure Co. TNL Hotels/ Resorts/ Cruiselines $37.98 $56.00 47% 75% -31% Frontier Communications Parent Inc. FYBR Telecommunications $25.21 $36.18 44% 82% -15% Manhattan Associates Inc. MANH Software $120.06 $171.80 43% 88% -23% MP Materials Corp Class A MP Other Metals/ Minerals $31.39 $44.79 43% 92% -31% Lumentum Holdings Inc. LITE Electrical Products $54.45 $76.44 40% 76% -49% Tenet Healthcare Corp. THC Hospital/ Nursing Management $44.22 $62.00 40% 80% -46% Repligen Corp. RGEN Pharmaceuticals $166.88 $233.10 40% 82% -37% STAAR Surgical Co. STAA Medical Specialties $59.57 $82.67 39% 82% -35% Carlisle Cos. Inc. CSL Building Products $251.99 $348.33 38% 75% 2% Source: FactSet Wall Street’s favorite small-cap names
Among companies in the S&P Small Cap 600 Index, 91 are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts. Here are the 20 with the highest 12-month upside potential indicated by consensus price targets:
Company Ticker Industry Closing price – Dec. 12 Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share “buy” ratings Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12 UniQure NV QURE Biotechnology $22.99 $51.29 123% 95% 11% Cara Therapeutics Inc. CARA Biotechnology $11.34 $23.63 108% 88% -7% Vir Biotechnology Inc. VIR Biotechnology $25.50 $53.00 108% 75% -39% Dynavax Technologies Corp. DVAX Biotechnology $11.22 $23.20 107% 100% -20% Thryv Holdings Inc. THRY Advertising/ Marketing Services $18.40 $36.75 100% 100% -55% Artivion Inc. AORT Medical Specialties $12.93 $23.13 79% 83% -36% Cytokinetics Inc. CYTK Pharmaceuticals $38.33 $67.43 76% 100% -16% Harsco Corp. HSC Environmental Services $7.17 $12.30 72% 80% -57% Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. LGND Pharmaceuticals $64.80 $110.83 71% 100% -35% Corcept Therapeutics Inc. CORT Pharmaceuticals $20.84 $34.20 64% 80% 5% Payoneer Global Inc. PAYO Misc. Commercial Services $5.70 $9.33 64% 100% -22% Xencor Inc. XNCR Biotechnology $28.69 $46.71 63% 93% -28% Pacira Biosciences Inc. PCRX Pharmaceuticals $45.50 $72.90 60% 80% -24% BioLife Solutions Inc. BLFS Chemicals $19.72 $31.38 59% 89% -47% Customers Bancorp Inc. CUBI Regional Banks $30.00 $47.63 59% 75% -54% ModivCare Inc. MODV Other Transportation $92.22 $145.83 58% 100% -38% Stride Inc. LRN Consumer Services $32.56 $51.25 57% 100% -2% Ranger Oil Corp. Class A ROCC Oil and Gas Production $36.98 $58.00 57% 100% 37% Outfront Media Inc. OUT Real Estate Investment Trusts $17.59 $27.00 53% 83% -34% Walker & Dunlop Inc. WD Finance/ Rental/ Leasing $82.22 $125.20 52% 100% -46% Source: FactSet The Dow
Here are all 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ranked by how much analysts expect their prices to rise over the next year:
Company Ticker Industry Closing price – Dec. 12 Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share “buy” ratings Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12 Salesforce Inc. CRM Software $133.11 $195.59 47% 80% -48% Walt Disney Co. DIS Movies/ Entertainment $94.66 $119.60 26% 82% -39% Apple Inc. AAPL Telecommunications Equipment $144.49 $173.70 20% 74% -19% Verizon Communications Inc. VZ Telecommunications $37.95 $44.60 18% 21% -27% Visa Inc. Class A V Misc.s Commercial Services $214.59 $249.33 16% 86% -1% Microsoft Corp. MSFT Software $252.51 $293.06 16% 91% -25% Chevron Corp. CVX Integrated Oil $169.75 $191.20 13% 54% 45% Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO Information Technology Services $49.30 $53.76 9% 44% -22% UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH Managed Health Care $545.86 $593.30 9% 85% 9% Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS Investment Banks/ Brokers $363.18 $392.63 8% 59% -5% Walmart Inc. WMT Specialty Stores $148.02 $159.86 8% 72% 2% JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM Banks $134.21 $143.84 7% 59% -15% Home Depot Inc. HD Home Improvement Chains $327.98 $346.61 6% 61% -21% American Express Co. AXP Finance/ Rental/ Leasing $157.31 $164.57 5% 43% -4% McDonald’s Corp. MCD Restaurants $276.62 $288.67 4% 72% 3% Johnson & Johnson JNJ Pharmaceuticals $177.84 $185.35 4% 36% 4% Coca-Cola Co. KO Beverages: Non-Alcoholic $63.97 $66.62 4% 73% 8% Boeing Co. BA Aerospace and Defense $186.27 $192.69 3% 77% -7% Intel Corp. INTC Semiconductors $28.69 $29.54 3% 13% -44% Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. WBA Drugstore Chains $41.06 $42.24 3% 17% -21% Merck & Co. Inc. MRK Pharmaceuticals $108.97 $110.62 2% 65% 42% Caterpillar Inc. CAT Trucks/ Construction/ Farm Machinery $233.06 $236.23 1% 41% 13% Honeywell International Inc. HON Aerospace and Defense $214.50 $217.35 1% 54% 3% Nike Inc. Class B NKE Apparel/ Footwear $112.07 $112.58 0% 64% -33% 3M Co. MMM Industrial Conglomerates $126.85 $127.30 0% 5% -29% Procter & Gamble Co. PG Household/ Personal Care $152.47 $150.22 -1% 59% -7% Travelers Companies Inc. TRV Multi-Line Insurance $187.11 $184.24 -2% 18% 20% Amgen Inc. AMGN Biotechnology $276.78 $264.79 -4% 24% 23% Dow Inc. DOW Chemicals $51.11 $48.73 -5% 15% -10% International Business Machines Corp. IBM Information Technology Services $149.21 $140.29 -6% 33% 12% Source: FactSet Don’t miss: 10 Dividend Aristocrat stocks expected by analysts to rise up to 54% in 2023
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With COVID cases rising fast, critics question why there’s no push for face masks in indoor settings
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A growing chorus of voices is questioning why there is no concerted effort to persuade Americans to wear face masks in public settings again as COVID cases, hospitalizations, fatalities and test-positivity rates rise across the nation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to encourage people to keep up with vaccines and boosters and to urge others to do so too. But for now, there is no push for face masks or social distancing, the public safety measures that helped contain the spread of the virus at the peak of the pandemic.
The daily average for new cases stood at 65,528 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 56% from two weeks ago. Cases are climbing in 47 states, led by Mississippi, where they are up 356% from two weeks ago.
The average for hospitalizations is up 24% to 38,331. Hospitalizations are climbing in 44 states, led by Vermont, where they are up 83% from two weeks ago.
The number of COVID deaths is up 48% to a daily average of 468, a disappointing reversal of the declining trend seen over the past several months. The test-positivity rate has climbed 25% to 12%.
New York City and New York state have emerged as hot spots, with an average of 6,405 new cases a day in the state in the last week, the tracker shows. Cases are up 74% from two weeks ago.
The omicron strains called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have become dominant in the Empire State, replacing BA.5. Both are sublineages of BA.5 but are more infectious than the original variant, meaning they can spread faster and more easily.
Meanwhile, other respiratory illnesses including flu, RSV and strep throat are also circulating, adding to the burden on healthcare systems.
Children are having an especially rough winter so far amid shortages of medicines to treat common childhood illnesses such as flu, ear infections and sore throats, CNN reported.
“Right now, we are having severe shortages of medications. There’s no Tamiflu for children. There’s barely any Tamiflu for adults. And this is brand-name and generic,” Renae Kraft, a relief pharmacist in Oklahoma City, told the network. Additionally, she said, “as far as antibiotics go, there’s not a whole lot.”
Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
Families have taken to social media to highlight their hunt for oseltamivir, the generic for Tamiflu, as well as for the antibiotics amoxicillin and augmentin, said CNN. And there is also a shortage of the inhaler albuterol, which helps open airways in the lungs, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• Some two years after they were first introduced, COVID vaccines have prevented more than 3 million additional deaths and about 18 million additional hospitalizations in the U.S., according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund. More than 655 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the U.S., and 80% of the overall population has had at least one dose. “The swift development of the vaccine, emergency authorization to distribute widely, and rapid rollout have been instrumental in curbing hospitalization and death, while mitigating socioeconomic repercussions of the pandemic,” the authors wrote.
• Chinese universities say they will allow students to finish the semester from home in hopes of reducing the potential for a large COVID-19 outbreak during the January Lunar New Year travel period, the AP reported. It wasn’t clear how many schools were participating, but universities in Shanghai and nearby cities said students would be given the option of returning home early or staying on campus and undergoing testing every 48 hours. The Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22, is traditionally China’s busiest travel season.
Some movie theaters in China reopened and COVID-testing booths were dismantled ahead of an announcement by authorities on Wednesday to scrap most testing and quarantine requirements. The changes come after nationwide protests against Beijing’s zero-COVID policy. Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
• The Nasdaq-listed 111 Inc.
YI,
+4.80%
has started retail sales of Pfizer’s
PFE,
+1.74%
oral COVID-19 treatment pill in China, according to the healthcare platform’s website, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The sales page for the Chinese platform on Tuesday showed it is now offering Paxlovid, the COVID medication that Beijing approved in February, for customers with positive results from polymerase chain reaction or antigen tests. Paxlovid has been used by medical practitioners to treat patients in China since March, when Shanghai was hit by a COVID outbreak, according to local media reports.Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 650.1 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.65 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 99.5 million cases and 1,084,766 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 42 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.
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WSJ News Exclusive | Amgen in Advanced Talks to Buy Horizon Therapeutics
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[ad_2]U.S. biotechnology company was the last of three suitors standing in an auction for Horizon
Source link -
Omicron subvariants are now dominant in the U.S. as COVID cases tick up and New York City becomes a hot spot
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Omicron subvariants continued to account for more new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the latest week than did BA.5, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are sublineages of BA.5, accounted for 67.9% of cases in the week through Dec. 10, while BA.5 accounted for 11.5%, the data show.
Last week, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 accounted for 62.8% of all cases in the U.S., while BA.5 accounted for 13.8%.
In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the numbers were even higher, with BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounting for 73.3% of new cases, compared with 10% for BA.5.
In the previous week, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 72.4% of all cases, compared with 6.9% for BA.5.
New York City is again emerging as a hot spot for COVID, according to a New York Times tracker, which shows cases up about 60% in recent weeks and hospitalizations at their highest level since February.
The test-positivity rate in New York City stood at 13% on Thursday, the tracker shows.
Overall, known U.S. cases are up 53% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations is up 30% at 37,066, while the daily average for deaths is up 35% to 460.
For now, the numbers remain far below the peaks seen last winter, when omicron first hit, but with flu and other respiratory infections currently sweeping the country and affecting young children, experts are warning people to take precautions.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses was reported by social-media users Friday in areas across China. This comes after the ruling Communist Party loosened its antivirus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump, the Associated Press reported. Official data showed a fall in new cases, but after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people, those data no longer cover large parts of the population. That was among the dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from the zero-COVID restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.
• U.S.-listed shares of China Jo-Jo Drugstores Inc.
CJJD,
+51.20%
rallied on Friday as the stores filled with customers buying cold medicines after COVID restrictions were eased, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. The stock was up 22%. The company, which is based in Hangzhou, China, operates drugstores and an online pharmacy in China. It is also a wholesale distributor of pharmacy products and grows and sells herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.Some movie theaters in China reopened and COVID-testing booths were dismantled ahead of an announcement by authorities on Wednesday that will scrap most testing and quarantine requirements. The changes come after nationwide protests against Beijing’s zero-COVID policy. Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
• Pfizer
PFE,
-0.12%
and German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
-0.88%
have received fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a single-dose mRNA-based vaccine candidate targeting both COVID and flu. The companies have already announced that they are in early-stage trials to review the safety and immunogenicity of their combined vaccine in healthy adults. The vaccine will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron sublineages, which have become dominant globally, as well as four different flu strains recommended for use in the Northern Hemisphere by the World Health Organization. If approved, the vaccine would be the first to target both COVID and flu.• A bill to rescind the COVID vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and to provide nearly $858 billion for national defense was passed by the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch one of the final items off their yearly to-do list, the AP reported. The bill provides about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress has significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia. The bill is expected to easily pass the Senate and then be signed into law by Biden.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 648 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.65 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 99.4 million cases and 1,084,236 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 42 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.
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