Shareholders might have noticed that Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) filed its quarterly result this time last week. The…

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2DokIqz

(Bloomberg) — Noble Corp., the offshore drilling contractor, filed for bankruptcy with a plan to cut more than $3.4 billion of debt after a crash in crude prices made undersea oil wells too expensive.The Chapter 11 filing in Texas would eliminate all of the company’s bond borrowings by swapping debt for equity, the company said in a statement. Noteholders agreed to invest $200 million of new capital through second-lien notes, and Noble has lined up a $675 million secured revolving credit facility backed by current lenders including JPMorgan Chase & Co.London-based Noble, one of the biggest owners of offshore rigs, failed to cope with a glut of floating drilling capacity that was a decade in the making, as exploration companies shifted focus to cheaper inland shale. The plunge in crude prices made any near-term recovery in offshore drilling even less probable.Noble reported both assets and liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion, according to the bankruptcy petition. It expects to emerge from Chapter 11 before the end of the year, and will continue operating while in bankruptcy, according to the statement.Its filing adds to the more than 200 bankruptcies by oilfield service companies dating from 2015, according to the law firm, Haynes and Boone LLP. Noble follows competitor Valaris Plc announcing Thursday that it may file for Chapter 11, while Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. filed for bankruptcy in April.The offshore-drilling business enjoyed the highest of highs when oil topped $100 a barrel earlier in the decade. Companies including BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. could lease out an advanced ship for more than $600,000 a day. An army of boats and helicopters took workers and supplies out to these rigs, where meals often included steak and shrimp, and carved ice sculptures adorned lunch rooms.“Facing Uncertainty”Jeremy Thigpen, who runs the industry’s biggest provider of deepwater rigs, Transocean Ltd., said this week he’s not so sure that rivals who emerge from bankruptcy with less debt will have an advantage over his own company.“At least in the interim period, I think we have a decided advantage because we’re not facing that uncertainty and those distractions,” Thigpen said. “I doubt that they are going to come out with a lot of cash and as you well know, it takes a lot of cash to operate and maintain these assets and certainly a lot of cash to reactivate them.”Noble had spent years in litigation after it spun off a chunk of more than 40 of its rigs in 2014 into a new company called Paragon Offshore that later filed for bankruptcy. The legal fight was seen as an overhang on Noble’s shares as it dragged on.As far back as 2017, its dispute was expected to be settled in the range of $150 million to $250 million, according to Susquehanna. But due to Noble’s more recent financial condition, Susquehanna said this month it should be a much lower range.The case is Noble Drilling Holding LLC, 20-33825, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).To see the docket on Bloomberg Law, click here.(Updates with additional details on restructuring and company starting in second 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.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2XhveqZ

Amazon saw sales surge in the second quarter as the pandemic fueled online shopping. Loop Capital Markets Analyst Anthony Chukumba joins the On the Move panel to discuss.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2XeGdBc

Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA), which commenced a late-stage trial of its mRNA vaccine, codenamed mRNA-1273, against SARS-CoV-2 earlier in the week, has been reportedly targeted by Chinese hackers.What Happened: Chinese government-linked hackers had hacked into the computer network of Massachusetts-based Moderna to steal data, Reuters reported, citing a U.S. security official tracking Chinese hacking.The U.S. Justice Department disclosed last week two Chinese nationals were caught spying on the U.S., including three U.S. firms researching on coronavirus treatment/vaccine, according to Reuters. These hackers reconnoitered the computer network of a Massachusetts-based firm working on a coronavirus vaccine in January.Related Link: Moderna Analyst: Coronavirus Vaccine Will Get Approved, Clock B+ In Orders Over Next Few YearsWhy It's Important: Moderna is one of the frontrunners in the coronavirus vaccine race and is expeditiously progressing toward bringing a vaccine to the market. The company was among the earliest inclusions in the U.S. federal government's Operation Warp Speed project.It may also be noted that three Chinese firms have advanced their respective vaccine candidates into the final phase of clinical trials.China has refuted allegations of hacking, Reuters reported.In pre-market trading Friday, Moderna shares were up 0.67% to $78.15.See more from Benzinga * The Daily Biotech Pulse: Spectrum's Positive Dementia Readout, Pfizer, BioNTech Start Late-Stage Coronavirus Trial, resTORbio Receives COVID-19 Funding * The Week Ahead In Biotech: Spotlight On GW Pharma, Ultragenyx FDA Decisions, Pfizer Earnings(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3hR0RiX

The U.S. drugmaker said two large trials of the oral antiviral being developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics would begin in September. Merck said it can manufacture “many millions of doses” of the drug before year end. Gilead Sciences Inc’s intravenous antiviral remdesivir is currently being widely used as a treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2ExMX6N

(Bloomberg) — Nvidia Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire Arm Ltd., the chip designer that SoftBank Group Corp. bought for $32 billion four years ago, according to people familiar with the matter.The two parties aim to reach a deal in the next few weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Nvidia is the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank, according to the people.A deal for Arm could be the largest ever in the semiconductor industry, which has been consolidating in recent years as companies seek to diversify and add scale. But any deal with Nvidia, which is a customer of Arm, would likely trigger regulatory scrutiny as well as a wave of opposition from other users.Cambridge, England-based Arm’s technology underpins chips that are crucial to most modern electronics, including those that dominate the smartphone market, an area in which Nvidia has failed to gain a foothold. Customers including Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp., could demand assurances that a new owner would continue providing equal access to Arm’s instruction set. Such concerns resulted in SoftBank, a neutral company, buying Arm the last time it was for sale.No final decisions have been made, and the negotiations could drag on longer or fall apart, the people said. SoftBank may gauge interest from other suitors if it can’t reach an agreement with Nvidia, the people said. Representatives for Nvidia, SoftBank and Arm declined to comment.Divestment Drive“With Nvidia’s low-cost fabless model enabling it to focus on R&D, engineering and programming, the fit with Arm would be perfect,” said Neil Campling, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities.Nvidia is the largest maker of graphics processors and it’s spreading the use of the gaming component into new areas such as artificial intelligence processing in data centers and self-driving cars. Marrying its own capabilities with central processor units designed by Arm may enable it to take on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in a more comprehensive way, according to Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann. He estimates Nvidia would have to pay about $55 billion for Arm.“You need control of BOTH CPU and GPU roadmaps and this, of course, includes data centers,” he wrote in a note Friday, referring to central processing units and graphic processing units. “Strategically, Nvidia needs a scalable CPU that can be integrated into its GPU roadmap, as is the case with AMD and Intel.”Billionaire Masayoshi Son has been selling some of SoftBank’s trophy assets as the company seeks to pay down debt at the Japanese conglomerate. SoftBank has offloaded part of its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and a chunk of its holdings in wireless carrier T-Mobile US Inc.SoftBank has been exploring options to exit part or all of its stake in Arm through a sale or public stock listing, Bloomberg News has reported. The chip-design company could go public as soon as next year if SoftBank decides to proceed with that option, people with knowledge of the matter have said.Arm has become more valuable as it pushes its architecture into smart cars, data centers and networking gear. The company could be worth $44 billion if it pursues an initial public offering next year, a valuation that may rise to $68 billion by 2025, according to New Street Research LLP.Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, is the world’s largest graphics chipmaker. The stock has surged more than twenty-fold in the past five years, giving the company more firepower to do large deals. Nvidia’s market value has increased to more than $260 billion in that time, surpassing Intel. The stock was little changed Friday in New York.(Updates with analyst comment in eighth 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.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/39JJYUl

One thing we could say about the analysts on Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE:STNG) – they aren't optimistic, having just…

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/39JXIyp

A look at the shareholders of Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:ARCT) can tell us which group is most…

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3hX0AL8

Tao Value recently released its Q2 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download here. The fund posted a return of 36.45% for the quarter, outperforming its benchmark, the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) which returned 18.81% in the same quarter. You should check out Tao Value's top 5 stock picks for […]

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/30aYn95

After a market crushing performance during the first half of the year, one of 2020’s best performers has been struggling of late. The last month has seen shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO) decline by 27%. The publication of murky data for the biotech’s COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate INO-4800 and a sense it is lagging behind competitors’ progress have raised concerns amongst investors. Add in an overheated valuation and maybe a sell off was inevitable.As a reminder, despite the souring sentiment, the stock is still up by a majestic 510% on a year-to-date basis.With the public and investors’ focus squarely on COVID-19 related developments, it is easy to forget these companies have other drugs in various states of development.On Thursday, Inovio shares broke out of the downtrend and surged by 9%. For a change the uptick had nothing to do with COVID-19.Which brings us to INO-3107, Inovio’s treatment for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP). Inovio announced INO-3107 had been designated Orphan Drug status by the FDA. The status is given to rare diseases with a small addressable market that otherwise not be profitable enough to develop, therefore the government steps in to provide support. The designation should provide Inovio with various incentives, including seven years of market exclusivity should the treatment gain FDA approval, a prescription drug user fee waiver, and tax credits for qualified clinical trials.INO-3107 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 trial with 63 subjects participating in the study. Defined by the growth of noncancerous tumors that can result in life-threatening airway obstructions, there are currently 15,000 RRP cases in the U.S.H.C.Wainwright analyst Ram Selvaraju commented, "These incentives could help the company advance future clinical development of INO-3107 and maximize the DNA medicine’s commercial value, in our view… We believe INO-3107 has the potential to address the underlying recurring virus, delay or eliminate the need for frequent surgery, and provide a long term treatment option to improve the quality of life for both adult and pediatric RRP patients.”However, it is still early days in the drug’s development and for now Selvaraju stays on the sidelines with a Neutral rating. (To watch Selvaraju’s track record, click here)Selvaraju’s colleagues agree. Inovio currently has a Hold consensus rating, based on 2 Buys, 5 holds and 1 Sell. The average price target comes in at $22 and implies shares will remain range bound for now. (See Inovio stock-price forecast on TipRanks)To find good ideas for healthcare stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3jXnwvD