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SpaceX and NASA are scheduled to launch the first orbital human spaceflight from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle Program ended in 2011. But as SpaceX dominates the headlines, a large number of small launch startups are poised to fail. Photo: NASA/Tony Gray, Tim Terry & Kevin O’Connell

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HBO's new HBO Max streaming service will be rolled out on Wednesday. HBO Max is WarnerMedia’s and its parent AT&T's (T) hedge against consumers cutting the cord to traditional cable and satellite services. It aims to establish a direct relationship with its audience much the way Netflix (NFLX) and Disney+ (DIS) have. AT&T will use its roster of phone, broadband and pay-TV customers to drive subscriptions to the service.Netflix recently reported its largest subscriber surge in years, while Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+ topped 50 million users just months after it launched.Top HBO Max executives contemplated delaying the streaming service’s launch in mid-March, when the virus started forcing most Americans to stay home, according to Robert Greenblatt, chairman of HBO Max parent WarnerMedia Entertainment.However, Greenblatt said, "It quickly dawned on us that people were watching more television and we thought…‘let’s get this thing to the customers.’"HBO’s subscriber numbers have been relatively flat for the past several years at around 33 million, and WarnerMedia is betting that the broader mix of programming available on HBO Max will appeal to people who avoided HBO due to its often dark content.At $15 a month, the service will be costlier than its streaming rivals. Netflix currently costs new subscribers $12.99 a month and Disney+’s  is priced at $6.99 a month. WarnerMedia had to offer HBO Max at that price, however, because under existing agreements with cable and satellite operators it isn’t allowed to make the service cheaper than HBO or current streaming service HBO Now.Current subscribers to HBO will have access to HBO Max at no extra charge either through HBO Now or if their pay-TV distributor has cut a deal to offer the new service.AT&T stock is down 18% over the past 3 months, but TipRanks data shows a Moderate Buy consensus around AT&T stock in the last 3 months. An average analyst price target of $33.62, implying 12.5% upside potential in the shares in the coming 12 months. (See AT&T stock analysis on TipRanks).Related News: Uber’s Latest Takeover Offer Said To be Rejected By GrubHub   Weight Watchers Fires Thousands Over Zoom Facebook Workplace Hits 5 Million Paid Users As Remote Work Demand Rises More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Australia’s New Century In Talks To Buy Vale’s Nickel, Cobalt Mine * Air Canada’s Proposed Takeover Of Transat Faces EU Anti-Trust Probe * Uber Cuts 600 Jobs In India, Cites Unpredictable Covid-19 Recovery * Latam Airlines Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection In U.S.

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President Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden approach Memorial Day differently; Pharmaceutical giant Merck makes deals for vaccines; Wuhan, China, says it has tested more than nine million people in 10 days. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday has the latest on the pandemic. Photos: Evan Vucci and Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

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Top news and what to watch in the markets on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.

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May.25 — Bayer AG has reached verbal agreements to resolve a substantial portion of an estimated 125,000 U.S. cancer lawsuits over use of its Roundup weedkiller, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Tim Loh reports on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.”

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(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve has already unleashed a barrage of new policies to keep the economy out of depression. Investors reckon it’s lining up another one.The Fed’s version of the strategy known as yield-curve control is expected to involve capping yields on government bonds of a chosen maturity -– by buying however much it takes. For central banks that already cut short-term interest rates to zero, it’s a way to signal that they’ll stay low for an extended period, while helping pin down longer-term borrowing costs too.Japan has been doing this for years, and Australia adopted the idea in March as the coronavirus struck. The Fed, which has responded to the pandemic by bulk-buying Treasuries and showering business and local government with credit, may not be ready to follow suit right now. U.S. states are tentatively emerging from lockdown, and policy makers will want to see how economic activity picks up.But with unemployment at levels not seen since the 1930s, and Congress deadlocked over another round of fiscal stimulus, Fed officials have been publicly warning that more action will likely be needed. They’re taking another look at their own toolkits, in a policy review due to conclude this year. And the idea of tamping down Treasury yields keeps coming up.Fed Governor Lael Brainard is a proponent. Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said in a webcast last week that Fed policy makers will probably get a briefing about how other central banks have done it.“We do expect yield-curve control by year-end,” said Priya Misra, head of global rates strategy at TD Securities in New York. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues paint a bleak picture of the economy’s near-term prospects, and they’ll need a strategy to deal with that, she said. “They can’t keep a negative economic outlook without easing monetary policy further.”Blurred LinesOther countries have tried negative interest rates, and some investors are betting that U.S. central bankers will follow that path too. But in October, Fed officials unanimously rejected the idea. And Clarida said Thursday that “nothing that has happened since then has changed my mind.”The Fed is already buying trillions of dollars of government debt this year, as the U.S. borrows in record volumes to fight the virus slump. That combination, echoed across the developed world, is blurring what on paper are supposed to be sharp dividing lines between central banking and fiscal policy.Yield-curve control, another example of that unconventional mix, would involve a tactical shift by the Fed. Instead of announcing a pre-set volume of Treasury purchases, as it has done under quantitative easing programs, it would buy (or conceivably sell) the debt in whatever volume is needed to maintain the chosen yield.Capping debt costs for the government, the argument goes, will benefit other borrowers in the economy too because those rates are benchmarks in key industries such as housing. Fed officials who favor the strategy also see it as a way of putting an exclamation point on their intentions to keep the short-rate low for a period of time.Japan, which pioneered yield-curve control in 2016, chose to pin 10-year rates at zero. When Australia adopted the idea in March, it plumped for 3-year debt and a target yield of 0.25%. The U.S. is more likely to follow the Australian example and focus on the short end of the curve, investors say.That could mean maturities of two or three years, Tiffany Wilding, an economist at Pimco, told Bloomberg TV last week. Mansoor Mohi-uddin, a senior macro strategist at NatWest Markets in Singapore, predicts somewhere between two and five years.“That would allow longer-term yields to move above those targets and keep the curve upward-sloping, which enables financial institutions to generate profits,” Mohi-uddin said.Wartime PrecedentTreasuries have already stabilized after some violent swings in the early days of the pandemic crisis, when at one point the entire yield curve crashed below 1%, with many maturities reaching all-time lows.The 10-year note, a benchmark for global borrowing, has fluctuated around 0.7%, more than double its record low in March. Two-year yields have been trading below the 0.25% level that marks the top of the Fed’s target range, while 5-year yields are slightly above it.And the yield gap between these securities and longer-dated debt has been widening -– especially as the Treasury has tilted issuance toward the latter. It sold 20-year bonds on Wednesday for the first time since the 1980s.Long-dated securities were part of the deal last time the U.S. experimented with a policy of yield-curve control. To help finance World War II, the Fed agreed to cap 30-year bonds at 2.5%.This time around, focusing only on shorter-term debt would help allay concern that central-bank independence is being subordinated to fiscal needs, according to Zach Pandl, a strategist at Goldman Sachs, who says yield-curve control is an option for the Fed along with more QE and even possibly negative rates.“This would be about providing monetary stimulus rather than keeping Treasury’s borrowing costs fixed,” said Pandl. “If economic conditions change, and the recovery is faster than expected, the Fed would have the ability to move away from yield curve control and tighten policy.”For now, according to minutes of its last rates meeting in April, the Fed is more concerned about demonstrating a commitment to staying loose.Officials discussed tying the benchmark interest rate to an inflation or unemployment goal, or pegging it around zero for an extended period. And a few suggested that capping short- to medium-term yields could strengthen the signal of their guidance on the short-term rate.“Yield curve control would reinforce that the Fed is going to keep rates low, and allay fears it will be overly reactive by removing accommodation at the first sign of inflation,” said Jonathan Cohn, a strategist at Credit Suisse.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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IBM Corp. (IBM) is said to reduce the number of employees across the U.S., streamlining its workforce in at least five states.The company declined to comment on the total number, but the workforce reductions appear far-reaching, according to a Bloomberg report.“IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility to constantly add high-value skills to our workforce. While we always consider the current environment, IBM’s workforce decisions are in the interest of the long-term health of our business,” company spokesman Ed Barbini said in a statement. “Recognizing the unique and difficult situation this business decision may create for some of our employees, IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021.”Based on a review of IBM internal communications on the Slack corporate messaging service, the number of affected workers is likely to be in the thousands, said a North Carolina-based worker who lost his job along with his entire team of 12.“This was far ranging — and historical employment ratings, age and seniority did not seem to matter,” he said. The person asked not to be identified on concern that speaking publicly may impact his severance package, according to the Bloomberg report.IBM employees in Pennsylvania, California, Missouri and New York, are also said to be affected by the round of job cuts, according to the Bloomberg report.Another worker who lost his job said the reductions mostly focus on IBM’s North American workforce. Half of his 70-person department were cut and told their last day with the company will be June 22.IBM is joining a list of tech companies, who are implementing cost-cutting measures, such as widespread job cuts after the coronavirus pandemic induced a slower economic growth environment. Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) has cut about a quarter of its workforce, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) last week said it will cut some employees to preserve cash.In an earnings call in January, IBM discussed reducing costs through “aggressive structural actions” to improve the competitiveness of its Global Technology Services consulting unit, which represents about a third of revenue.Shares in IBM, which have advanced 25% in the past two months, are still down 13% year-to-date.Turning now to Wall Street, analysts are cautiously optimistic about the stock’s outlook. The Moderate Buy consensus is divided into 4 Buy ratings and 8 Hold ratings. The $132.36 average price target suggests shares have 12% upside potential in the coming 12 months. (See IBM stock analysis on TipRanks).Related News: Nvidia Sinks Despite Stellar Earnings; Top Analyst Says Buy On Any Weakness Micron Has More Than Enough Tailwinds to Offset Huawei Sanctions, Says Top Analyst Baidu May Use Nasdaq Delisting To Boost Value – Report More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Air Canada’s Proposed Takeover Of Transat Faces EU Anti-Trust Probe * Uber Cuts 600 Jobs In India, Cites Unpredictable Covid-19 Recovery * Latam Airlines Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection In U.S. * Chi-Med, BeiGene Join Forces For Solid Cancer Tumor Treatment

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Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and his partner Canadian musician Grimes have changed their baby's name to comply with Californian law. What Happened The baby X Æ A-12 will now be named X Æ A-Xii to comply with a law in California, revealed Grimes on Instagram Sunday.Grimes said in response to a comment on the social media network, "Just removed the numbers to confirm [sic] to California law," She added, "Roman numerals. Looks better tbh."The singer also added that a dash in the name was allowed by the law.Why It Matters According to the California Birth Registration Handbook, baby names are limited to the 26 alphabets of the English language and cannot include numeric characters or diacritical marks. Hyphens or apostrophes may be used in certain names. Musk had previously disclosed that his baby boy's name is pronounced "X Ash A 12." Explaining the meaning of the name, he had said X is just "X," and the A-12 is just "A 12."The Tesla chief executive gave credit to his wife for coming up with the name and disclosed that A-12 signifies the Archangel-12 plane, the precursor of their favorite aircraft SR-17. Musk announced at the beginning of the month that he was rethinking his "attachment to the material world" and will be selling "almost all physical possessions."It is not certain if the baby's name would be accepted by the state of California, reported Business Insider. Price Action On Friday, Tesla shares closed 1.30% lower at $816.88.Image Credit: Elon Musk's Twitter.See more from Benzinga * Amazon Shareholders Demand Disclosures On COVID-19 Worker Safety * BlackRock Under Pressure From Activist Shareholders On Mindful Climate-Related Investing * Hewlett Packard To Reduce Workforce, Slash Salaries(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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