Category: Barrons

Still, it was good enough for Wall Street, which can be a funny place. The Street, after all, is all about expectations, and JPMorgan’s results could mean gains for other large banks with a similar mix of businesses that are due to report earnings in coming days. JPMorgan earned $1.38 a share from $33.8 billion in revenue. In last year’s second quarter, the bank earned $2.82 a share from $29.5 billion in revenue.

Profits for Citigroup totaled $1.3 billion, or 50 cents a share—better than the 35 cents a share analysts expected, but 73% below profits of $4.8 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Revenue of $19.8 billion was 5% higher than in the year-earlier quarter. Shares were down about 3.4% Tuesday afternoon.

“We are extremely disappointed in both our second quarter results and our intent to reduce our dividend,” Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in a statement. “While the negative impact of the pandemic is unprecedented and many of our business drivers were negatively impacted, our franchise should perform better, and we will make changes to improve our performance regardless of the operating environment.”

Moderna confirmed in an email to Barron’s that it had set an estimated start date for the trial of July 27. The start date would meet the company’s announced target of beginning its Phase 3 trial in July, although it is later than the July 9 start previously announced by some of the investigators involved. The company’s CEO has said that he aims to have efficacy data by Thanksgiving.

Delta reported a pretax loss of $7 billion as adjusted revenue collapsed by more than $11 billion, down 91% from a year earlier, to $1.2 billion. The revenue number missed consensus estimates for $1.4 billion. Delta lost $9.01 a share on a GAAP basis, versus a consensus forecast loss of $3.72 a share.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the total consumer price index climbed a seasonally adjusted 0.6% last month from May, slightly higher than the 0.5% increase economists surveyed by FactSet predicted. The rise, which broke an unprecedented string of contractions, was mostly due to a surge in gasoline prices. The gas index rose 12.3% in June after recent declines, accounting for more than half of the increase in the overall CPI.

Boeing updates delivery figures monthly, so there is little drama in quarterly releases. Still, 20 is the lowest quarterly number since 1963. Boeing delivered 149 planes in the second quarter of 2019 and 184 planes in the second quarter of 2018.

Shares of nCino opened at $71 and were trading at $77.20, up 150% on the Nasdaq Stock Market at midday Tuesday. With roughly 89.2 million shares outstanding, nCino now has a market capitalization of $6.9 billion. The Wilmington, North Carolina, fintech sold 8.06 million shares at $31 each late Monday.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group will reportedly inject £200 million in cash, as well as offering £400 million in payment deferrals to shareholders alongside Delta.

Comcast stock has lagged behind the market and some peers in 2020, as investor concern about the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on its NBCUniversal media division outweighed continuing cable-segment strength.

The second quarter of 2020 included an April of nationwide economic lockdown, a May of rapid reopening and releasing of pent-up demand, and a June in which that recovery met new coronavirus outbreaks and some reimposed restrictions on activity in certain states. Through it all, consumers and businesses have been forced to adjust their daily tasks, working conditions, and spending patterns to a pandemic-impacted world. Needless to say, it was a difficult quarter to predict.

Wall Street analysts have given it their best shot. Consensus bottom-up estimates are for S&P 500 revenues to fall 12% from the second quarter of last year, while earnings are expected to tumble 44%. While that most likely won’t be the exact result, 10 points in either direction is an ugly number. (Pepsi reported results that were better than feared.)

The terms call for Maxim holders to receive 0.63 Analog Devices shares for each Maxim share. After the transaction closes, current Analog holders will have 69% of the combined company, with Maxim holders owning 31%. The deal is structured to be tax-free for U.S. income-tax purposes. Wells Fargo analyst Gary Mobley noted that this would be the largest chip-sector deal in four years—since Intel’s acquisition of MobileEye and Analog Devices’ acquisition of Linear Technology—and should buoy other chip shares.

The FDA grants Fast Track designation to speed review and approval of experimental drugs that could fill unmet medical needs. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines aren’t the first to receive the nod: In May, Moderna said that the FDA had given its experimental Covid-19 vaccine a Fast Track designation.

The Sunbelt spike can’t solely be blamed on increased testing because hospitalizations are rising, too. Hot spot states like Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas may have to reconsider their reopening plans. Few regions can afford complacency. The national number of daily new cases burst past 50,000 as July began and has continued rising in each subsequent day, except two. On Friday, 68,000 additional cases were reported.

The increase last month pushed the budget gap for the current fiscal year to $2.7 trillion, compared to $747 billion in the same nine-month period last year, the U.S. Treasury Department said Monday. The government operates on an annual budget that runs from Oct 1. to Sept. 30 instead of using the calendar year more common in the business world.

The alliance is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss its production agreement. Currently, the group has voluntarily reduced production by 9.7 million barrels a day, or about 10% of normal global production. Based on the deal the group extended last month, the cut would be tapered to 7.7 million barrels this month.

Spartan’s market value crossed the billion-dollar threshold last week when the stock jumped 55% on news of the potential combination. The transaction will bring more than $1 billion in fresh capital to Fisker, the target company, fully funding the development of Fisker’s electric SUV called Ocean.

Willing initial public offering investors are clearly plentiful: On Monday, the hedge fund resubmitted its prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is now seeking to raise $4 billion for its special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. A listing could come as soon as this week.

Three-quarters of wealthy investors surveyed anticipate permanent lifestyle shifts after the pandemic. About 70% say they will reduce travel; 88% say staying healthy is a top priority; and 46% may forsake cities for less populated areas.

The Internal Revenue Service’s postponement of this year’s filing deadline for all individual taxpayers, from the usual April 15 to July 15, gave welcome breathing room during the disruptive early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. While Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicated in late June that there was a chance of another postponement, the IRS swiftly put an end to that notion.

The analysis compares outcomes from a trial that included no control group, and similar patients who did not participate in a trial but were sick at the same time and received standard of care treatments.

Pfizer executives have said they hope to submit the vaccine for Food and Drug Administration approval by the fall. In an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company should be able to submit the vaccine for FDA approval in September. And Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, said on an investor call on July 1 that the company planned to file for approval in Oct. 2020.

The producer-price index, reflecting wholesale prices, unexpectedly fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in June from a month earlier, the Labor Department said Friday. The decline followed a 0.4% bounce in May, when businesses started to reopen from April’s coronavirus shutdown that dragged inflation to historic lows. Economists surveyed by FactSet anticipated an increase of 0.1% for June.

The 737 MAX is Boeing’s newest model single-aisle jet and has been grounded world-wide since mid-March 2019, following two deadly crashes over a five-month span. American has ordered 100 MAX jets and has received 24. About 300 MAX orders have been canceled so far in 2020, most by foreign airlines. That makes the possible American Airlines cancellation sting a little more.

The IEA increased its prediction for global oil demand this year because the second quarter was not quite as bad as feared. The agency now predicts that demand will fall by 7.9 million barrels this year to 92.1 million barrels a day, an improvement of 400,000 barrels from its last forecast.

These results for the largest cruise operator didn’t come as a big surprise, as the company previewed its second-quarter results last month. The company’s fiscal second quarter ended in May. It shut down its operations in mid-March due to the coronavirus, meaning it didn’t have many sailings during the quarter. Its quarterly revenue totaled $740 million, versus $4.8 billion in the corresponding period a year ago.

Optimism may seem strange, given the damage that has occurred since February. Including unemployed people who were misclassified as “employed with unpaid absences,” 30 million Americans lost their jobs in just two months, driving up the real unemployment rate to 22% in April.

The subsequent rebound has been steep and quick, but it’s been confined to a subset of the total labor market. As of mid-June, just over half of those who had been on temporary layoff or had been wrongly counted as “employed” had gotten rehired. That has brought down the true unemployment rate to 14%, which is still extraordinarily high, but also meaningfully lower than it was just two months earlier.

The struggling motorcycle manufacturer based in Milwaukee said an overhaul in its operating model will result in costs of about $42 million in the second quarter. The company also announced its 17-year veteran executive John Olin stepped down as chief financial officer. Harley-Davidson will eliminate 700 total positions. Of those, 500 are current employees and 200 are open positions, a spokesperson told Barron’s.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma stepped down from his role as executive chairman last year, appointing Zhang to take over the position in September. He has been CEO since 2015. Citi analyst Alicia Yap noted that Zhang, in the letter, highlighted digitization as the new norm, playing directly into the company’s wheelhouse as it provides services for global e-commerce and has become “the essential infrastructure for businesses pursuing digital transformation across all industries.”

Lumber prices and their rapid rise, particularly in the three weeks ended on July 2, have exposed an industry that was or is “underinventoried to meet current demand,” says Greg Kuta, president of lumber broker Westline Capital Strategies.

The Labor Department said Thursday that some 1.31 million Americans filed initial jobless claims in the latest week. That’s down from 1.41 million a week earlier and below the 1.38 million economists surveyed by FactSet predicted, but it marks the 16th straight week where initial claims exceeded 1 million. What’s more, continuing claims for unemployment benefits remain above 18 million, while continuing claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance—representing gig workers and others not normally eligible—rose 1.5 million to 14.4 million in the latest week.

“Fundamentally, the fact that initial unemployment claims are still running over 1.3 million per week this far into the onset of the pandemic in the U.S., and the stubbornly high level of continuing claims, provides a cautionary message about the difficulties involved and the time it will take to heal a labor market thrown into turmoil by unprecedented circumstances,” says Josh Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR. Before the pandemic, the highest single weekly tally ever was 695,000 in 1982.

Air traffic has rebounded a bit since the pandemic started, largely because leisure travelers have started boarding planes to take vacations or see family and friends. But a leisure-travel recovery extending beyond the summer is looking dicier. More than a dozen U.S. states and cities recently imposed quarantines amid a surge in coronavirus cases. New jobless claims are still rising. And federal unemployment benefits are set to expire for 31 million Americans at the end of July, potentially pinching consumer spending.

Biden calls for a $400 billion, four-year increase in government purchasing of U.S.-based goods and services plus $300 billion in new research and development in U.S. technology concerns. Among other policies expected to be announced Thursday, he proposes tightening current “Buy American” laws that are intended to benefit U.S. firms but can be easily circumvented by government agencies.

Bed Bath said it lost $1.96 a share on revenue that fell 49.2% year over year, to $1.31 billion. Analysts were looking for a $1.31 per-share loss on revenue of $1.39 billion. The company declined to report same-store sales, citing temporary store closures, but said that net sales from its digital platform grew 82% in the quarter, including sales growth of more than 100% in April and May. Online sales accounted for nearly two-thirds of Bed Bath’s total sales for the period. The company said it was also encouraged by the strong response to its expanded click-and-collect option.

Costco said comparable sales jumped 11.5% in June, well ahead of consensus, which called for just over 4% growth. Costco’s total adjusted comparable sales, excluding gasoline and foreign exchange, climbed 14.4%. Costco’s e-commerce business jumped 86.7%. Store traffic fell 1.6% on a global basis, but climbed 0.4% in the U.S., the first reported growth in U.S. traffic since March.

The drugstore conglomerate said early Thursday that the Covid-19 crisis had hurt sales by up to $750 million in the third quarter of its fiscal year. The company said it had furloughed more than 16,000 employees in the U.K. and that it planned to eliminate 4,000 positions in its Boots chain there. “Oof,” wrote Evercore ISI analyst Elizabeth Anderson in a note.

Woodworth addressed new product rumors, the company’s subscription model, and its much-discussed holiday commercial during a Barron’s Investing in Tech call. The conference takes place every Wednesday until July 15.

Carnival, the largest U.S.-based cruise operator, suspended sailings in mid-March along with its peers due to Covid-19. The company had several high-profile Covid-19 outbreaks on its ships, including the Diamond Princess, which was quarantined in Japan earlier this year.

The Tesla CEO plans to crack “level 5 autonomous driving” this year. That’s the message he delivered Thursday at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in China.

The software giant stuck to its full-year outlook for gradually improving demand in the second half of the year, with revenue rising 1%-3% to a range of €27.8 billion to €28.5 billion.

United told 36,000 employees on Wednesday that mass furloughs might be necessary, because of continuing losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic and collapse in air travel. The warnings came during town hall meetings with employees. A senior executive told The Wall Street Journal that mass furloughs would be a “last resort.”

Airlines have been back adding flights and expanding their schedules this summer, banking on a leisure travel recovery to kick in. But with Covid cases surging—recently reaching record daily highs—the recovery may prove short-lived. At least 14 states now require visitors to quarantine for two weeks if they have traveled from areas with high or rising levels of coronavirus cases. The rules vary by state and include a variety of exemptions and penalties. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island now appear to be the most restrictive, with quarantine rules impacting travelers from 16 other states.

The privately held chain is the latest retailer to file for bankruptcy protection in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Sales at many major retailers slid earlier this year as state and local governments asked nonessential businesses to close to prevent further spread of the virus.

The audit commissioned by Facebook in 2018 found the California giant had taken “important steps forward in building a long-term civil rights accountability structure” but that those steps “are not sufficient and should not be the end of Facebook’s progress.”

Following two week-over-week declines, the trade group’s purchase index, which measures the volume of applications for a loan to purchase a home, increased 5% on an adjusted week-over-week basis, and rose to levels 33% higher than the same time in 2019 on an unadjusted basis, according to the release for the week ending July 3, 2020.

The company posted a job listing for a “senior full-stack software engineer” to work on a platform code-named Gryphon. “We are building a subscription platform, one that can be reused by other teams in the future,” reads the listing, which was first picked up by The Verge. Bloomberg also reported that the company is considering a subscription service, citing an unnamed source “familiar with the company’s plans.”

Disney had already reopened the retail operations of the park with enhanced safety protocols in May, and on Saturday the Magic Kingdom Park and Animal Kingdom Park will also come back online. EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will follow on July 15.

“Our digital-first brand is a driver for growth in this highly-fragmented market,” Quicken Loans CEO Jay Farner said in a letter contained within the filing. “Even with the title of largest mortgage lender, we believe there is significant opportunity ahead and fresh strategies to reach even more clients.”

Biogen said Wednesday morning it had finished submitting its application for approval for aducanumab to the Food and Drug Administration. That submission was originally expected to be completed in early 2020. Shares fell in April when the company said it wouldn’t be done with the application until the third quarter of this year.

Levi lost 48 cents a share, on revenue that fell 62.1% year over year to $498 million. Analysts were expecting a 43-cent loss on revenue of $564.36 million.

The company will deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine to the federal government, which it said could be ready “as early as late 2020.”

Regeneron stock jumped 2% on Tuesday morning. The stock rose 0.8% on Monday on both positive and negative Covid-19 updates from the company: Disappointing results in a trial of its arthritis drug Kevzara in serious Covid-19 patients, and promising results in a small safety trial of the antibody cocktail.

The company said in a release that itineraries of the ship Mardi Gras out of Port Canaveral, Fla., from Nov. 14 through Jan. 30, 2021, have been canceled. Instead, that ship, which can hold more than 5,000 passengers, is scheduled to enter into service in early February of next year.

That, in fact, is all that the notoriously secretive Palo Alto, Calif.-based data analytics company said about its plan—there are no details on bankers, timing, or the size of the offering.

The German chemicals giant announced at the end of June it had agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle close to 100,000 lawsuits claiming Roundup had caused cancer. The company acquired the weed killer when it bought U.S. agribusiness Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018, inheriting its legal liabilities. Bayer has lost three jury trials in recent years totaling more than $2 billion in damages, all of which are being appealed and aren’t covered by the settlement. The company has consistently denied allegations of a link between the herbicide and cancer.

According to the technology news site Recode, the new service will cost $98 a year, and include same-day grocery delivery, fuel discounts at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals, among other features. Recode had originally reported on the program in February; at that time Walmart+ was supposed to roll out in March or April. But the launch apparently was delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox News Monday night that the U.S. is considering banning Chinese-owned social media apps like TikTok. The app was recently banned in India over concerns that the app’s owner could share user data with China. The company has denied such claims.

The forecast comes on the heels of a host of relatively positive housing data that found demand picking up after its initial coronavirus-induced decline in early spring. Home prices in May 2020 grew 4.8% from the same month in 2019 and 0.7% from April 2019, according to the CoreLogic report—greater than the 0.3% month-over-month increase CoreLogic predicted in April.

Nearly 60% of Americans want the companies they buy products from to have a position about issues such as racial discrimination and social justice, a survey carried out in June among 1,004 respondents found. Roughly 50% of the survey’s respondents said they often do online research to see how a brand reacted to the social issues.

Analyst Scot Ciccarelli takes a look at the sector Tuesday, writing that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which lowered the federal corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, would likely come under pressure if Biden wins the presidency, as he has talked about increasing that rate to 28%. That would represent a 4% to 9% earnings hit for the retailers he covers, while a return to the 35% rate—which other Democrats have advocated for—would mean a 10% to 18% earnings headwind.

On one hand, the services-sector reading is the latest sign that the worst of the economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic is over, with activity springing back as businesses reopen and rehire. On the other hand, it’s a reminder of how long a road it will be to fully recover—especially as a renewed rise in infections slows or reverses reopening plans in some states. Moreover, the report shows ongoing weakness in services-sector employment.

Once the deal closes in the fourth quarter of 2020, Berkshire Hathaway’s energy subsidiary will gain ownership of 7,700 miles of natural gas pipelines, vast storage facilities, and a 25% stake in a liquefied natural gas export, import, and storage site in Maryland. Buffett is usually a bargain hunter during significant market downturns, placing big bets on Goldman Sachs and General Electric during the financial crisis. But until Dominion, Buffett hadn’t made similarly large acquisitions during the coronavirus pandemic.

An Uber/Postmates merger would reduce the number of primary players in the U.S. market to three from four, along with Grubhub and DoorDash. The deal will also likely increase speculation on the potential timing of an initial public offering for DoorDash, which recently raised a new round of funding at a valuation of nearly $16 billion.

Antibody drugs like Regeneron’s experimental cocktail are thought to hold substantial promise for curbing the pandemic. Barron’s reported last month that a number of companies, including Eli Lilly and Vir Biotechnology in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, will be testing Covid-19 antibody drugs this summer.

As of Monday morning, links to the Washington Redskins’ team landing page on both Walmart‘s and Target’s websites did not return any results. Walmart said following the team’s announcement on Friday it would discontinue the sale of items that reference the name and logo. A Target representative confirmed to Barron’s that such team merchandise was removed from its website.

The companies have tapped Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner and a vocal public-health expert during the pandemic, and former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to be co-chairmen of a panel of experts. The panel members will be compensated in a manner consistent with senior subject matter experts; the expenses of the panel will be divided among the two cruise operators.

The Journal news article says the additional tests will assess the safety of Boeing software fixes. The 737 MAX—Boeing’s latest single-aisle jet model—has been grounded world-wide since mid-March 2019 following two deadly crashes inside of five months. Both crashes were tied back to new flight control software called MCAS, short for maneuvering characteristics augmentation system. Boeing has been working on MCAS, and other issues, since the grounding.

There were 2,064 announced M&A transactions in the U.S. for the quarter ended June 30, totaling $106.4 billion. This compares to 2,895 deals valued at $622.9 billion for the same period in 2019.

The company said most of its stores were open and June sales rose 9% year over year, and 33% from May. Sales in the company’s fiscal third quarter, ended in June, are expected to be $705 million, more than the $657 million Wall Street has forecast. Financial flexibility is improved as well. “As of June 30, the Company estimates that it had more than $815 million of cash on-hand, with an additional $200 million of undrawn capacity on its asset-based line of credit,” the update says.

And though some real estate buyers and sellers are balking or insisting on taking additional precautions, in many cases, showings and transactions in areas with increasing cases are still moving full steam ahead. Pent-up demand from the usual spring sales season combined with a newfound sense of urgency from buyers coming out of quarantine in less-than-ideal living situations, has led to unusually brisk markets even in states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona that are currently seeing some of the fastest-rising infection rates.

ADP said Wednesday that hiring in June followed a massive upside revision for May, to 3.1 million jobs added from an originally reported 2.8 million jobs lost. The revision makes sense when you consider the difficulties in surveying closed businesses and the fact that ADP’s model incorporates the prior month’s payroll change, which is then backfitted to actual numbers. For May, the Labor Department reported an increase in May nonfarm payrolls of about 2.5 million.

Purchase applications for the week ending June 26 dipped 1% from the week earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis and 2% on an unadjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a Wednesday data release. Despite the week-over-week drops, the index is still 15% higher than it was during the same period one year ago, the release said.

The companies said that all 24 patients who received lower doses of the vaccine developed levels of neutralizing antibodies after 28 days that were roughly two times higher than those found in patients who have recovered from Covid-19 infections.

That changed Monday, when the Food and Drug Administration issued a 24-page guidance document for Covid-19 vaccine developers. The document doesn’t spell out a timeline, but one analyst says that its guidelines point firmly toward no vaccine being made available until next year.

Beyond Meat previously announced agreements to offer Beyond Burgers via Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell outlets in China. And the company’s shares recently spiked on disclosure of a distribution deal for China with Sinodis, a wholesale food distributor that is part of the French dairy maker and distributor Savencia.

FedEx said it earned $2.53 a share on revenue of $17.36 billion. Analysts were looking for earnings of $1.57 a share on revenue of $16.54 billion. “Virtually all revenue and expense line items were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic during the quarter,” FedEx said in a statement, noting that business closures weighed on orders, although that was somewhat offset by a surge in deliveries to residential areas.

Tesla stock rose almost 4% in Wednesday trading, giving the electric vehicle pioneer a market value of about $208 billion. That eclipses the Toyota Motor market value of roughly $202 billion. Toyota shares were down nearly 1% in overseas trading. Year to date, Toyota stock is down about 12%. Tesla, on the other hand, has soared more than 168%. And over the past month, Tesla shares have climbed more than 20%. Rising second-quarter delivery estimates catalyzed the recent Tesla stock move.

In a call with investors discussing the quarterly results, executives discussed their outlook for sales during this period where the U.S. is halting efforts to reopen. Sales slowed sharply in Texas in mid-June, Macy’s said, when state officials warned about rising numbers of coronavirus infections during the state’s reopening. And while digital sales picked up in response, the increase hasn’t made up for the initial 15-percentage-point slowdown.

The Corona importer reported a net loss of 94 cents a share. Comparable earnings—which excludes $625.6 million in adjustments for things like losses from unconsolidated investments—clocked in at $2.30 per share, ahead of consensus estimates calling for $2 per share.

On Monday, the Supreme Court made it easier for the president to fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Congress established as part of the Dodd-Frank Act in response to the 2008-09 financial crisis. In a 5-4 decision, the court found that a Dodd-Frank provision protecting the CFPB director from removal without cause—such as neglect of duty or malfeasance in office—was unconstitutional.

The Conference Board, a private research group, on Tuesday said its gauge of consumer confidence jumped to 98.1 in June from 85.9 in May. The increase was much better than expected; economists surveyed by FactSet expected a rise to 90.6. While improving confidence is welcome insofar as it suggests consumers are increasingly likely to spend and power the economic recovery, sentiment remains far below the 132.6 level notched in February.

In a trading update on Tuesday, Shell said it would book charges between $15 billion and $22 billion in the second quarter as it lowered its mid- and long-term oil and gas price outlook, citing the pandemic and its shift to lower carbon emissions.

Exxon has yet to write down any shale assets this year, holding to a belief that oil and gas values will eventually rebound. Several oil and gas accounting experts allege that Exxon’s reticence to adjust the value of shale assets on its balance sheet amounts to accounting fraud. In a series of complaints filed to U.S. authorities, they argue that the company is deceiving investors by failing to write down much of the value of XTO Energy, a natural-gas driller it purchased for $31 billion a decade ago, along with other assets.

It isn’t the first cancellation Boeing has dealt with since the MAX was grounded in March 2019. Orders for more than 100 planes were canceled in April and more than 300 have come off the books in 2020, a result of “contractual changes.”

The combination comes weeks after Uber tried but failed to acquire Grubhub, which instead accepted a bid from European food-delivery company Just Eat Takeaway.

The stock has risen 34.5% year to date, as yoga gear not only doubles as office wear in the age of Covid-19, but also fits well with consumers’ renewed focus on wellness. The Mirror deal gives it a way to engage with consumers to boost loyalty and sales even if stores aren’t open, while also tapping into the hot at-home fitness trend, which may have even longer legs if new virus hot spots force gym closures. Time will tell whether the price was right.

YouTube TV on Tuesday said in a blog post it is raising the price of the virtual cable television service by 30%, to $64.99 a month from $49.99. The new price for the service, which is operated by Alphabet, is effective Tuesday for new users, and will be rolled out quickly to existing subscribers.

The number of seated diners at restaurants has dropped by 20% in Arizona and Texas over the past few weeks, according to Barron’s analysis of daily data published by Open Table, and by more than 10% in Florida and South Carolina.

Conagra said it earned 75 cents a share on revenue of $3.29 billion. Analysts were forecasting earnings of 51 cents on revenue of $3.13 billion. The company highlighted a 21% increase in volume and favorable pricing behind its 21.5% increase in organic sales in the quarter, related to increased at-home food consumption during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The announcement comes three days after the Federal Reserve released the results of its annual stress test. While the regulator said that the banking sector was well-capitalized and equipped to handle “the harshest shocks,” it nevertheless put restrictions on the level of capital banks can return to shareholders. Share repurchases are halted, dividends are capped at second-quarter payouts, and further dividends are limited to an average of recent earnings.

The test flights are an important step in the recertification of the troubled MAX jet, grounded for more than a year. But the flights aren’t the final step of the process. If everything goes as expected, investors can shift their attention to pilot training and certification by non-U.S. authorities, and then consider how the plane will be reintroduced by airlines amid the global pandemic.

In an open letter Monday morning, Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said that a five-day course of remdesivir will cost private health insurers in the U.S. $3,120, and will cost governments of developed nations, including the U.S., $2,340. The company said it believes that remdesivir’s ability to shorten recovery times for Covid-19 patients will result in hospital savings of $12,000 per patient in the U.S. It said it chose to set its price for remdesivir lower “to ensure broad and equitable access at a time of urgent global need.”

Ineos, the chemicals giant founded and owned by British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, will pay BP $400 million up front and $3.6 billion when the sale is completed, with a further $1 billion due in 2021. The deal completes a broader $15 billion asset disposal plan one year ahead of schedule and will give the company room to breathe after cutting its outlook earlier this month and revealing it would take up to $17.5 billion of charges in the second quarter.

Chesapeake was a pioneer in hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, the technology that led to a massive increase in American oil and gas production and at one point had drilling rights to an area of American land as large as the state of West Virginia, The Wall Street Journal noted.

The memory-chip maker reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $803 million, or 71 cents a share, compared with $840 million, or 74 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were 82 cents a share, compared with $1.05 a share in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $5.44 billion from $4.79 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of 75 cents a share on revenue of $5.27 billion.

Burger King, owned by Restaurant Brands International, sells the Impossible Whopper and will sell Impossible Sausage too. The Impossible Sausage will be available in Starbucks stores, as well as the top 30 diners in America, as rated by Yelp.

The deal values Kardashian West’s brand, KKW, at $1 billion. Last year Coty purchased a $600 million stake in her sister Kylie Jenner’s beauty line, which the company values at around $1.2 billion.

The IPO was priced at $17, valuing the company at about $1.7 billion. Today, Tesla is the second-most valuable car company in the world, behind only Toyota Motor. Tesla stock recently surpassed $1,000 a share and the company’s current market capitalization is roughly $180 billion.

The influential Hong Kong-based analyst, who has historically had close ties to Apple’s supply chain partners, also repeated his previous assertion that the new phones will no longer include in-box EarPods.

Shares of the special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, have risen 130% since the company announced a deal to combine with Hyliion on June 19, including gains of 42% last Friday and 29% on Monday. But its warrants haven’t kept up, and are trading at a big discount to where the stock is valued.