Tuesday Market Report

Numbers on Monitor

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There is one reporting company today but we own it two ways:

*Swiss ABB gained 0.8% more today after it reported on its Q1 today, confirming the pre-announced data from earlier in April. Its operational Ebita (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization) hit $959 mn in Q1 vs $636 mn in Q4 '20, with income from operations hitting a high margin of 13.8%, up 3% sequentially, according to Vontobel analysts. Demand for electric material is up sharply mostly from China and so far there has been no slippage from shortages of chips or plastics—yet. The stock gained 2% in Swiss trading, hitting CHF 30.51/sh today. Apart from our direct stake we also own ABB in our Investor AB IVSBF fund from Sweden, run by the clan Wallenberg which was given high marks yesterday in the Financial Times for its EQT industrial holding company partnership. (I was too busy making fun of fund manager Aberdeen renaming itself “Abrdn”. We sold SLFPY with impeccable timing, AKA luck, earlier this month and the new name idiocy has been roundly mocked.)

*Naspers (NPSNY) gained 0.25% at the opening on its successful sale of 2% of Chinese Tencent last week using its Prosus position in Euroland. Note that another stock with the ticker symbol NPSN, Inspire MD, doing a reverse split today, is being confused with the one we own which lost 0.14% by noon. PROSY is up 0.4%. Yesterday Chinese antitrust watchdogs hit Meituan, which does carry-out and chat in China, a mere week after it did a secondary issue that was well subscribed. Beijing may want to limit foreign ownership of its tech stocks.

*BP plc lost about a half percent Tuesday after beating Q1 estimates thanks to higher oil prices. It will again buy back shares for about $500 mn. Replacement cost profit, its preferred metric, came in at $2.6 bn vs analyst forecasts averaging $1.4 bn. It also beat Q4 2020 RCP of $115 mn in Q4 and $791 mn in the prior Q1. It also met its target of reducing net debt to under $35 bn, hitting a level of $33.3 bn, down 5.6%. It is taking the lead in “transition to a lower carbon future” while also giving shareholders “competitive cash returns”, said CEO Bernard Looney. BP stock denominated in US$s despite being British is up 16% YTD according to Barron's.

*Kirkland Lake Gold, KL, which I recommend, was tipped by a seekingalpha writer today. So its price fell 0.5% because gold is lower today.

*The drop in share prices for Tesla has taken down our NIOa competitor. The market is dumb these days. Look at the jump in price for GameStop after GME sold more shares.

*Santander is today's best performer, up another 4.6% to $3.65. We paid $5.47+ for SAN.

Drugs

*Zymeworks gained 2.4% today on no news. ZYME hit a year's low last week.

*Compugen preclinical data highlighted the potential of COM902, an anti-TIGIT therapeutic antibody, to enhance anti-tumor immune responses. COM902 binds specifically to TIGIT, disrupting TIGIT binding with PVR, the cognate ligand of TIGIT. Expression of TIGIT is induced on lymphocytes infiltrating the tumor micro-environment, including Tregs, effector T cells, and NK cells in various solid tumors. However, COM902 does not demonstrate T cell depletion activity in-vitro or in-vivo, making it unlikely to elicit direct depletion of TIGIT-expressing effector T cells, important for anti-tumor activity. blockade of TIGIT/PVR binding by COM902 enhances human T and NK cell function in vitro. This effect can be increased by adding to COM902 either CGEN's anti-PVRIG antibody, COM701, or an anti-PD-1 antibody.

In vivo, in murine tumor models, COM902 combined with anti-PVRIG or anti-PD-L1 antibodies enhances anti-tumor lymphocyte responses and inhibits tumor growth. COM902 is currently being studied as a monotherapy in a Phase I trial in patients with advanced cancers. The trial, initiated in 2020, is on track to report initial data in Q4 2021. A further trial of the combination study of COM701 with COM902 is planned in H2 2021. CCJ is up only 0.27% in part because the release is hard to understand but it means COM902 is showing cancer benefit.

*Roche applied to the EU Medical Agency (CHMP) to approve Enspryng to treat anti-aquaporin antibody seropositive neuromyelitis, an optical spectrum disorder in adults and adolescents. RHHBY.

*AbCellera lost 6.27% today because ABCL will report Q1 earnings on May 13.

*Illumina Inc, ILMN, with Kartos Therapeutics, will develop a genomic profiling array for blood cancers using ILMN's TruSight Oncology in whole blood to enable Kartos to treat them with its KRT-232 which activates p53 to kill TP53 wild cancer cells. The share has fallen a lot because the FTC stopped ILMN buying back Grail which it sold earlier, now for $11 bn. The US stock I own makes sequencing and arrays for genetic testing, genomics, and diagnosis.

*Oxford/Astra Zeneca partner Vaccitech helped develop the troubled AZN Covid-19 vaccine but also works on other jabs which, unlike the Covid one, can produce income from licenses now, rather than later. Despite its corona-virus work it has not yet booked a profit. The UK outfit is researching virus jabs using chimpanzee virus for MERS, prostate cancer, and shingles. But hanging over the lab is the blood clot risk. Now it plans a $117 IPO that will raise over $613 mn on Wall Street as VACC after funding itself privately. It lost $17.9 mn in 2020. Lrsf underwriter is Morgan Stanley. AZN stock is up modestly on the news.

*Genfit gained 3.8% but is still below our basis. I bought the French stock because French people always complain about their livers, which its medicine focuses on. It named a new CFO yesterday, Thomas Baetz. GNFT.

*Japanese Eisai and Merck will jointly apply for using the former's Lenvima with Keytruda to treat advanced uterine cancers. ESALY with Gilead seeks Japanese approval of filgotinib in partients with ulcerative colitis, in addition to rheumatoid arthritis.

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