US stock indexes are rising amid investor optimism for a potential US fiscal stimulus package needed to help the economy recover as a resurgence in Covid-19 cases surfaces.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is leading the gains among US indexes and is up 1.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is adding 1.2% and the S&P 500 Index is edging up 1.1%. The big tech stocks, including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Netflix are advancing between 1% and 3%.
Back in the green: Nikola is surging 17% after the electric truck maker said that it is making progress in achieving its key business milestones. The company expects the first batch of 5 prototypes of the Nikola Tre, a 100% battery-electric truck, to be completed in the next few weeks. It plans to begin testing production-engineered prototypes of its hydrogen fuel-cell powered semi-trucks for the medium- and long-haul trucking sectors, by the end of 2021.
NKLA shares have plunged 49% over the past month after a report issued by short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the company of being an “intricate fraud built on dozens of lies”.
In another cloud deal: Datadog is spiking 15% as the cloud security network partnered with Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure. As part of the strategic tie-up, Datadog will be available in the Azure console as a first-class service. This means that Azure customers will be able to implement Datadog as a monitoring solution for their cloud workloads through new streamlined workflows that cover everything from procurement to configuration.
Synnex is popping 6.7% after the company reported better-than-expected 3Q results and issued strong 4Q guidance. 3Q revenues increased 4.2% to $6.47 billion year-on-year and surpassed analysts’ expectations of $5.72 billion. The business process services provider’s adjusted EPS of $3.33 came way higher than the Street consensus of $2.31.
Buoyed by solid quarterly results, the company now expects revenues of between $6.45 billion and $6.65 billion, compared with analysts’ projections of $6.07 billion. Its adjusted EPS guidance range of $3.68-$3.93 exceeded Street estimates of $3.30.
Meanwhile, Micron is sinking 6% as the memory chip maker’s issued November quarter guidance fell short of analysts’ expectations. The company expects revenues of $5.2 billion vs the Street consensus of $5.44 billion. Adjusted EPS is forecast at $0.47 vs analysts’ estimates of $0.73.
Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh cut the stock’s price target to $56 from $58 saying that that the company’s dismal outlook reflects revenue loss from sales to China’s Huawei Technologies, increased mix of low-margin NAND products, and “weaker enterprise with higher inventory levels and pricing trends.”
In corona-related news: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals disclosed that its investigational two-antibody cocktail, REGN-COV2, lowered viral levels and improved symptoms in non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients. Shares rose as much as 4% in pre-market trading.
J.P. Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov commented: “The results showed an impact on viral load in seronegative patients and a modest trend in reducing clinical outcomes in a subset of patients, but these data are by no means definitive. The possibility that a diagnostic test may be required to identify amenable patients could also complicate things.”
Becton Dickinson announced that its 15-minute, point-of-care, SARS-CoV-2 antigen test has been granted European regulatory approval, sending its shares up 3.7%. The US medical device maker expects the tests to be commercially available at the end of October for countries in Europe that recognize the CE mark. BD has been ramping up its global manufacturing network to produce 8 million SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests per month by October and expects to produce 12 million tests per month by March 2021.
Moderna stock is also benefiting from positive news. Shares are rising 2.5% after an early safety study of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, in older patients demonstrated similar binding- and neutralizing-antibody responses to those previously reported among vaccine recipients aged between 18-55. The vaccine elicited a strong CD4 cytokine response involving type 1 helper T cells, said the researchers. What’s more, adverse events associated with the mRNA-1273 vaccine were mainly mild or moderate.
