Day: 22 May 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is "cautiously optimistic" about Moderna Inc's (NASDAQ: MRNA) coronavirus vaccine candidate and told NPR that, if proven successful, it could be ready for use at the end of 2020.Moderna's stock ticked up about 4% Friday morning following his comments.What Fauci Said"Although the numbers were limited, it was quite good news because it reached and went over an important hurdle in the development of vaccines," Fauci said Thursday at a CNN town hall. "That's the reason why I'm cautiously optimistic about it."In early Phase 1 trial data released Monday, the vaccine was seen to trigger antibody responses in eight healthy volunteers and found to be "generally safe and well-tolerated."Fauci acknowledged to NPR that the data has not been peer reviewed, but, "having looked at the data myself, it is really quite promising."Benzinga is covering every angle of how the coronavirus affects the financial world. For daily updates, sign up for our coronavirus newsletter.What's Next?He noted that the peer review process would happen perhaps within weeks, and additional studies of the candidate have been accelerated."What we're doing right now" in examining multiple candidates, "is that you even start" making doses "before you are completely sure that it works," he told NPR. With this strategy, doses could be ready by the end of the year or early 2021.In the meantime, the threat of infection persists. Fauci warned that a second wave of outbreaks may come as states continue to loosen mitigation policies.Related Links:Moderna Vaccine Trial Missing Data To Judge Vaccine Efficacy, Experts SayModerna Analyst Says Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate Has 65% Chance Of SuccessSee more from Benzinga * Apple Vs. Tesla: Morgan Stanley Breaks Down The Parallels * Unemployment Prospects, Rate Environment Sends Bank of America Neutral On Charles Schwab * Improvement In US Weekly Jobless Number Weaker Than Expected, Continuing Claims Top 25M(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Alibaba’s online sales skyrocketed in its quarterly earnings report. Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre weighs in on the latest financial results.

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Aoris Investment Management recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. The Aoris International Fund aims to generate returns of 8–12% p.a. over a market cycle. The portfolio is long-only and highly selective. You should check out Aoris Investment Management’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right […]

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The U.S. Department of Defense last month reversed its decision to fund two projects to process rare earth minerals for military weapons, one of which has controversial ties to China, according to three sources and a government document seen by Reuters. The Pentagon decision is a step backward for President Donald Trump’s plan to redevelop the U.S. rare earths supply chain and reduce reliance on China, the world’s largest producer of the strategic minerals used to build a range of weapons. Australia’s Lynas Corp and privately held U.S. firm MP Materials both said on April 22 they had been awarded funding by the Pentagon for rare earths separation facilities in Texas and California, respectively.

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(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. expects revenue growth to slow this year, reflecting post-Covid 19 economic uncertainty at home as well as the potential for U.S.-Chinese tensions to disrupt its business.The e-commerce giant forecast sales growth this year of at least 27.5% to more than 650 billion yuan ($91 billion), down from 35% previously and slightly below analysts’ estimates. While it posted a better-than-expected 22% rise in March quarter revenue of 114.3 billion yuan, that marked its slowest pace of expansion on record. Alibaba’s shares slid more than 5% in New York.Online shopping began to bounce back from March, executives said Friday. But the tepid outlook demonstrates the world’s second largest economy has yet to fully shake off Covid-19, with consumers still hesitant about spending on big-ticket items. Asia’s largest corporation is tackling also the rise of rivals such as ByteDance Ltd. and Pinduoduo Inc. And the Tmall operator is going head-to-head with Tencent Holdings Ltd. for internet leadership in everything from online media to payments and cloud computing.Alibaba has lost more than $40 billion of market value since the coronavirus first erupted in January, and now has to grapple with not just an uncertain global economic environment but also any potential fallout from U.S.-Chinese financial tensions. On Friday, executives sought to assuage concerns about a U.S. bill that mandates much closer accounting scrutiny of U.S.-listed Chinese companies and may bar them from American bourses.Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said Alibaba’s financial statements have been consistently prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP accounting measures and were beyond reproach. “The integrity of Alibaba’s financial statements speak for itself, we have been an SEC filer since 2014 and hold ourselves to the highest standard,” she told analysts on a conference call. “We will endeavor to comply with any legislation whose aim is to protect and bring transparency to investors who buy securities on U.S. stock exchanges.”The bigger short-term challenge is in reviving growth: Alibaba’s bread-and-butter customer management or marketing business grew just 3% in the March quarter. Much of that stems from weaker consumer sentiment during the coronavirus-stricken quarter, when total Chinese e-commerce rose just 5.9% or at less than a third of 2019’s pace, according to government data.Rival PDD posted a revenue rise of 44% on Friday, down sharply from 91% in the previous quarter, although that still beat expectations. Its sales and marketing expenses jumped 49%.Alibaba’s net income was 3.2 billion yuan, down 88% from a year ago when it booked an 18.7 billion yuan one-time gain on investments. In February, Alibaba declared a waiver of some service fees for merchants struggling financially during the outbreak on its main direct-to-consumer Tmall platform. In April, the company rolled out a new 10-billion-yuan subsidy program for Tmall users to buy electronics, encroaching on JD.com Inc.’s traditional turf. These initiatives may further compress margins for the June quarter.“The challenging part is for them to achieve the same amount of growth this year,” said Steven Zhu, a Shanghai-based analyst with Pacific Epoch. “Just because they are too big, for the same amount of growth, they need to spend much more effort.”But executives were confident in a gradual e-commerce recovery over the year. Beyond its main business, younger divisions such as its cloud computing arm should buoy its bottom line. That division’s revenue jumped 58% in the quarter.“Despite a challenging quarter due to reduced economic activities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we achieved our annual revenue guidance,” Wu said in a statement. “Although the pandemic negatively impacted most of our domestic core commerce businesses starting in late January, we have seen a steady recovery since March.”What Bloomberg Intelligence SaysThe company’s businesses most impacted by merchant and logistic disruptions are also its most lucrative, such as retail marketplaces Taobao and Tmall, while faster-growing segments like cloud computing and digital entertainment don’t contribute to profit. Subsidies for users and merchants will add to costs. Alibaba may provide an improved growth outlook for the June quarter given the retreat of the pandemic in China, but the recovery could be gradual as consumption sentiment remains weak.\- Vey-Sern Ling and Tiffany Tam, analystsClick here for the research.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), while announcing its Q2 2020 results, said it would temporarily slash salaries and carry out job cuts. What Happened As sales decline due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, HPE, the maker of business technology hardware and software, will institute measures to effect a turnaround.The company's overhaul plan is expected to save it $1 billion by 2022.The salary cuts would mostly affect senior executives and will take place between July 1 and October 31, 2020. "We are going to cut salaries, that's not an easy thing to do," said HPE CEO Antonio Neri during a conference call with analysts. He added, "I don't take that lightly."No specifics on job cuts have been forthcoming from HPE, but a company spokesperson told Fortune that HPE would be "working through the details in the next couple months as we evaluate the various areas where we can drive savings."Why It Matters According to Fortune, HPE on its own and also as a part of the Hewlett Packard conglomerate, has laid off thousands of workers as a changing technology landscape means a fall in demand for servers and computer storage devices.In the previous quarter, HPE sales fell 16% on a year-over-year basis to $6 billion. The CEO attributed the decline to the disruption in the supply chain, causing the inability of HPE to ship products rapidly. He said, "We ship three servers every minute, so when the supply chain stops, it's pretty significant."Neri also said that shelter-in-place orders have made it difficult for HPE employees to install supercomputers at customer premises, which significantly affected the revenue. The CEO expressed some optimism for the future saying, "China is pretty much back to normal." This would mitigate some of the disruptions to the company's supply chain.HP Price Action HPE shares traded 5.41% lower at $9.80 in the after-hours session on Thursday. The shares had closed the regular session 0.78% higher at $10.36.Image Credit: Wikimedia.See more from Benzinga * Trump Wants To Attend SpaceX Launch Of Astronauts Into Space, Jokes He Would Like To Put Reporters Into The Rocket * IBM's Announces Company-Wide Job Cuts As New CEO Attempts Restructuring * China's Failure To Set Growth Target For 2020, Rising Geopolitical Tensions Lead To Drop In Oil Prices(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Dividend paying stocks like Momo Inc. (NASDAQ:MOMO) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason – some…

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Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Anjalee Khemlani discuss the latest coronavirus news and the race for a vaccine.

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