US futures were down on Tuesday ahead of the release of Trade Balance data that is expected to reflect a widening of the trade deficit to record levels in March.
Dow futures were down 0.3%, S&P futures were down 0.4%, and Nasdaq futures had fallen 0.7% at the time of writing.
While companies including CVS Health (CVS), ConocoPhillips (COP), DuPont (DD), Pfizer (PFE), Sysco Corp (SYY), Under Armour (UA) are expected to report before the opening bell, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) and Akamai Technologies (AKAM), Herbalife Nutrition (HLF), T-Mobile (TMUS), Western Union (WU) and Zillow (Z) will report after the market close.
Cocrystal Pharma (COCP) was the most actively traded stock as well as the biggest gainer in pre-market trading as the stock jumped 50.8% at the time of writing. The company provided an update regarding the development of its COVID-19 antiviral drugs and said that it was developing protease inhibitors to work against the virus.
CVR Partners LP (UAN), a manufacturer of urea ammonium nitrate and ammonia, was the biggest laggard in pre-market trading crashing 28.3% at the time of writing. UAN announced its first-quarter results on Tuesday with a net loss widening to $25 million versus a net loss of $21 million in the same quarter last year. Sales declined 18.6% year-on-year to $61 million.
Moderna (MRNA) will supply up to 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Gavi, the vaccine alliance. This will also include an initial 34 million vaccine doses to be supplied in the fourth quarter of this year.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said, “We recognize that many countries have limited resources to access COVID-19 vaccines. We support COVAX’s mission to ensure broad, affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and we remain committed to doing everything that we can to ending this ongoing pandemic with our mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.”
Intel (INTC) will invest $3.5 billion towards improving its products. The company intends enhancing the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor packaging technologies in its New Mexico plant. The investment will also target the enhancement of the company’s breakthrough 3D packaging technology.
Intel’s SVP and GM of Manufacturing and Operations Keyvan Esfarjani said, “A key differentiator for our IDM 2.0 strategy is our unquestioned leadership in advanced packaging, which allows us to mix and match compute tiles to deliver the best products. We’re seeing tremendous interest in these capabilities from the industry, especially following the introduction of our new Intel Foundry Services.”
Dell (DELL) will sell Boomi, its cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to Francisco Partners and TPG Capital for $4 billion in cash. Dell has been on a divestment spree in recent years as it looks to increase its focus on its infrastructure and PC business.
TPG Capital partner, Nehal Raj, stated, “Boomi’s cloud-native platform enables enterprises to streamline business processes and is essential for driving digital transformation. TPG has a long history of partnering with corporate leaders like Dell Technologies to carve out and grow dynamic technology businesses. We look forward to working with the teams at Boomi and Francisco Partners to accelerate the company’s growth as an independent entity.”
NIO Inc (NIO), the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer announced delivery numbers for the month of April. The company delivered 7,102 units, a jump of about 125% year-on-year. This includes the delivery of 1,523 ES8s, 3,163 ES6s, and 2,416 EC6s. ES8 is NIO’s flagship premium smart SUV, with a 6 to 7 person seating capacity.
Meanwhile, Li Auto (LI), another Chinese EV manufacturer also announced vehicle delivery data for the month of April. Li Auto delivered 5,539 LI ONE SUVs for the month of April, which is a rise of about 111% year-on-year. The number of vehicle deliveries in April takes the total number of EVs delivered by the company so far this year to 51,575.
