Market Brief: June 29, 2020

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.