Market Brief: June 22, 2020

Existing-home sales fell 9.7% last month from April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Economists polled by FactSet expected a smaller decline to an annual rate of 4.175 million, from 4.330 million a month earlier.

The Alphabet unit is expected to have 2020 digital ad sales of $39.58 billion, down 5.3% from the previous year. Google’s share of the digital ad market is expected to decline to 29.4%, from 31.6% last year.

Among those executives was Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, who provided a look at iOS 14, the new version of the iPhone operating system. There’s a new feature called App Library, to make it easier to automatically find and organize apps. You can hide some pages if you want to simplify your experience. There are suggestion features—and a set of recently downloaded apps.

American Airlines Group said in a filing on Monday that it was raising $3.5 billion through a mix of senior secured debt, common stock, convertible notes, and a new term loan facility. United Airlines Holdings, meanwhile, is gearing up to issue $5 billion in debt this week, according to Bloomberg, using its frequent-flier mileage program as collateral. Both companies’ shares closed lower Monday.

The California electric utility said Sunday it had completed or priced nearly $14 billion of debt offerings, at both the operating- and holding-company levels. The bonds were sold as part of the restructuring plan that was approved by the bankruptcy court on Saturday. It said in a May presentation that it expected to raise roughly $6 billion of additional debt with bridge financing that it aims to refinance with tax-exempt bonds.

In an open letter on Monday, Gilead Chairman and CEO Daniel O’Day writes that he hopes an inhaled version of the drug (currently administered intravenously for Covid-19 patients), would allow for easier treatment outside of a hospital setting, and could reach patients at an earlier stage of the disease.

The Wilmington, N.C., fintech is seeking to raise $100 million via an initial public offering, according to a securities filing on Monday. The $100 million is a placeholder that will likely change in future filings. The company did not disclose how many shares it would raise or their price range. That information will be in future filings.

GE said Deloitte & Touche will take over for KPMG after KPMG signs off on GE’s 2020 financial statements. At least some shareholders will be happy with the news. KPMG lost some support in recent years as losses tied to GE’s power and insurance businesses grew.

The stock is on the move because the agreement represents something new for Virgin Galactic. Up until now, the company has been focused on space tourism, taking paying customers to the edge of the atmosphere in a “space glider,” as well as developing hypersonic commercial air travel. Now the company will also help train non-NASA astronauts to go to space, so more people can participate in the “low earth economy,” or LEO for short. That’s a step beyond Virgin Galactic’s space-tourism focus.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Bobby Burleson in December pointed to 16 states that he expected to put pot legalization on their ballots this election year. That list has since dwindled as Covid-19 has dominated officials’ attention, slowing down ballot initiatives across the nation. Burleson thinks such a slowdown may be temporary. He points to budget shortfalls in states forced to shut down, especially ones that have been weighing legalization already, as motivation to legalize cannabis for tax revenue.