Co-Diagnostics’ (CODX) Covid-19 detector, the Logix Smart COVID-19 Test kit, has scored the green light from The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration. The product is an in vitro diagnostic test for the qualitative detection of the RNA from SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19).The molecular test uses a single step real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) process in lower respiratory tract fluids and upper respiratory tract fluids from patients who meet the clinical criteria COVID-19. These include fever, cough, shortness of breath and travel history to China.Negative results do not preclude SARS-CoV-2 infection and should not be used as the sole basis for patient management decisions, the company adds.However, shares in CODX plunged 8% in Tuesday’s trading, and fell a further 1.4% after-hours on a bout of profit-taking after the stock’s steep climb on Monday.The stock rallied 28% following the announcement that the company’s partner, Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL), received Emergency Use Authorization from the US FDA for CRL Rapid Response, a saliva-based COVID-19 test that can be self-administered at home, and then tested using Co-Diagnostics’ patented CoPrimer technology.“We believe that CRL’s selection of the Co-Diagnostics platform, and their successful emergency use authorization from the FDA, speaks volumes about the quality, sensitivity, and specificity of our CoPrimer primer and probe technology,” remarked Dwight Egan, CEO of Co-Diagnostics.Indeed shares in Co-Diagnostics have exploded over 3000% year-to-date, and the stock still maintains a bullish Strong Buy Street consensus. That’s alongside an average analyst price target of $34 (19% upside potential).“Logix Smart COVID-19 test’s high accuracy [has been] independently validated for multiple times” comments HC Wainwright analyst Yi Chen, adding that time to detection is just 63-90 minutes. With the U.S. continuing to record over 60,000 new cases of Covid-19 daily Chen expects Co-Diagnostics to continue to provide its partners with large volumes of its Logix Smart Covid-19 test kits.The analyst reiterated his buy rating on the stock with a $35 price target following the approval of the company’s self-collecting Covid-19 saliva test. (See CODX stock analysis on TipRanks).Related News: CytoDyn Scores Safety Thumbs Up For Late-Stage Covid-19 Trial Abiomed’s Impella Scores Emergency FDA Nod For Covid-19 Patients Regeneron: Covid-19 Antibody Combo Prevents & Treats Disease In Animals More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * LivePerson Spikes 15% On Raised Profit Guidance; Needham Almost Doubles PT * CyberArk Drops 6% On 3Q Outlook, Top Analyst Says Hold * Twilio Falls 4% In After-Hours On Weakening Corporate Demand * Oppenheimer Lifts SolarEdge's PT After Strong 2Q Results

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(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc.’s planned stock split in the wake of the surge in its shares and strong earnings is stirring more bets on the company, according to TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.Activity in the world’s largest technology company “sticks out” over the past week, a repeat of the pattern seen in previous years when Apple split its stock, Christopher Brankin, chief executive officer of brokerage TD Ameritrade Asia Pte in Singapore, said in an interview Tuesday.“It’s something that we’re seeing across our options here because of that announcement,” he said, referring to the use of derivatives to bet on more gains in Apple shares.The iPhone maker’s quarterly report last week crushed Wall Street expectations amid pandemic demand for its products, and the company announced a four-for-one split for later this month to make its stock more accessible. The stock has risen for five straight days, adding more than 17% to $438.66.Signals from the options market are flashing enthusiasm for Apple shares, such as unusually high relative prices for upside bets, according to RBC Capital Markets strategist Amy Wu Silverman.Apple options are pricing in more upside risk versus downside than at any time this year, despite the stock having almost doubled from its mid-March lows, Chris Murphy, derivatives strategist at Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP, wrote in a note Monday. Smaller traders have been a big portion of such bets in recent months, according to Sundial Capital Research Inc.That’s part of a wider fervor for the stay-at-home trade favoring some technology stocks. More than 82,000 users of the U.S. investing app Robinhood.com added Apple to their accounts in some form over the past week, according to website Robintrack.net, which aggregates data from the brokerage but isn’t affiliated with it.(Adds stock move in fourth paragraph.)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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Stock futures rose Wednesday morning as investors awaited more updates on stimulus talks out of Washington and another batch of corporate earnings and economic data reports. During the regular session, the Nasdaq logged a fifth straight session of gains and closed at a record, and the S&P 500 and Dow rose for a third straight day. Gold topped $2,000 per ounce.

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Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWKS) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in four days. Investors can purchase shares…

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Note: Financial references in US dollars unless otherwise indicated.Q2 2020 HIGHLIGHTS * Adjusted EBITDA of $84 million and Adjusted earnings of $0.

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Top news and what to watch in the markets on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.

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(Bloomberg) — Oil climbed to a five-month high in London, topping $45 a barrel after U.S. industry data showed a decline in the nation’s stockpiles.Brent futures gained for a fourth day, rising as much as 1.7% to the highest price since March 6. The American Petroleum Institute reported a 8.59 million-barrel drop in crude inventories last week, according to people familiar with the figures. Meanwhile, European equities and U.S. futures advanced on signs American lawmakers are making progress on an economic aid package.Oil has struggled to maintain its momentum after rallying from a plunge below zero in April as rising coronavirus infections raise concerns about a sustained recovery in consumption. OPEC+ is set to test the market by returning some supply this month after historic output curbs, while Saudi Aramco is poised to delay the release of its official selling prices for September as producers face pressure to reduce the cost of their crude with demand ebbing.“Oil prices are rising, pricing in what looks like a sizable decline in U.S. crude inventories,” said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at Rystad Energy.A Bloomberg survey shows U.S. crude stockpiles probably fell by 3.35 million barrels last week. That would be the third weekly decline in four weeks if confirmed by official data from the Energy Information Administration later on Wednesday.The forecast drop follows a sharp reduction in U.S. crude production since March. And on Tuesday, American shale drillers signaled the end of output growth, with Diamondback Energy Inc.’s chief executive officer saying there are currently no market signals that such growth is needed.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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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Europe has the motivation, but not the means, to break up Big Tech. For the U.S., the inverse is true. That’s bad news for anyone hoping for a full regulatory reckoning with Silicon Valley’s and Seattle’s giants over their monopolistic tendencies.Washington lawmakers see their job as protecting the consumer first and foremost, while Brussels wants to make sure other companies are allowed to compete with the incumbents. Sadly for Europe, the Americans have all the power but their approach is unlikely to produce radical change (as my Opinion colleague Tara Lachapelle wrote this week).That isn’t to say the European Union is wasting its time in leading the charge against Big Tech. Congress’s grilling last week of the chief executives of Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. showed that the “Brussels Effect” is in full force. The EU plays an outsized role when it comes to regulation because other regions — even the Americans — tend to follow its lead. Up to a point, at least.As U.S. lawmakers made the case against the West Coast giants, time and again their arguments echoed efforts already well underway in Europe. When the Democratic Representative David Cicilline tackled the way Google displays news snippets in search results without reimbursing the publishers, he evoked new copyright laws proposed by the EU last year.For two years Brussels has been looking at whether Amazon uses its marketplace data to compete unfairly with the sellers on its website; that’s now a hot topic on Capitol Hill too. The market power of Apple’s App Store and of virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa, both of which are the subject of new EU investigations, were also on Congress’s agenda.QuicktakeHow the ‘Brussels Effect’ Helps the EU Rule the WorldWhen people ask Margrethe Vestager and other European trustbusters what power they really have to moderate the behavior of trillion dollar U.S. companies, this is often their answer: When Brussels uncovers bad corporate behavior, it lays out a road map for Washington D.C. to follow.Tackling companies with combined annual revenue of $782 billion, more than the gross domestic product of Switzerland, is a huge challenge, meaning competition authorities benefit from the work that’s already been done elsewhere. Even the British Competition and Markets Authority’s study of the digital-advertising market got a shout out from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who cited the agency’s findings on Google’s dominant market share.The European Commission does have the legal authority to try to break companies up, but no one thinks it would ever try this on a U.S. company. The political blowback would be too severe. The Americans could themselves seek breakups, and would have the power to do so, but their antitrust regime has different priorities. While the problems — and the levels of exasperation at the cavalier behavior of the companies — might be the same, the types of punishment that lawmakers have in mind are different, according to Nicolas Petit, the joint chair in competition law at the European University Institute.That’s because American antitrust law focuses on the interests of the consumer — primarily around pricing — while Europe considers the broader market dynamics and effect on competition. While Vestager probably wants to foster the creation of a company that could counterbalance Google and Facebook’s might in search and social media, her U.S. peers only worry if the impact of their dominance is detrimental to consumers.That narrower American focus limits the likelihood of far-reaching action, says Tommaso Valletti, the head of Imperial College London’s Department of Economics and Public Policy, and a former chief competition economist at the European Commission. “The U.S. has, de facto, abdicated any enforcement for 20 years in this area,” he told me.In her submission to the House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee, Vestager called for “common” policy responses, according to a document obtained by the website Euractiv. It’s an admirable goal and should be the logical conclusion of investigations tackling many of the same topics. It’s also a pipe dream.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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