My Oh Mylan Massacre
Shares of Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ:MYL) plunged 21% yesterday in its worst one day price action in nearly 2 decades. The broad selloff on Wall Street probably exacerbated the situation. Revenue missed expectations for the 3rd time in a year and the company seemed to have no concrete plans to turn things around. Companies can’tj just make money these days. They have to keep growing, thanks to heightened expectations from extremely low interest rates. A plan announced to find “alternatives to unlock the true value of our one-of-a-kind platform,” in the board’s words didn’t have any meat behind it. The good news is that CEO Heather Bresch, in true Trumpian form, said that a “tremendous amount of work [is] being done,” so there’s that to look forward to.
SEE: Cannabis Stock News Daily Roundup May 7
US Futures Up and Down, Asia Down
US stock futures are modestly up this morning, though that could change by the time you read this. The Dow, S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY), and Nasdaq (NASDAQ:QQQ) are all up around a quarter of a percent after the carnage of yesterday catalyzed by President Donald Trump’s rough U-turn on trade with China, threatening tariffs galore. Gold, silver, and oil are also modestly up. The story is different in Asia, which is headed down, led by Japan’s Nikkei, followed by Hong Kong and China. Europe is more or less flat, though we’ll see what happens as the day proceeds.
McDonald’s Going Meatless
McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) is about to go meatless, not entirely, but will introduce a meatless burger, not in the US yet, but in international markets. The vegan burger, “Big Vegan TS” (sounds delicious) already sells in Germany, made by Nestle (OTCMKTS:NSRGY), and started selling last month. These aren’t veggie burgers, but rather lab-created plant-based meaty like material that supposedly looks and tastes like meat. The idea is to appeal to meat eaters as well as vegans and vegetarians. Burger King tested a meatless Whopper last month and is now rolling it out across the US, so it must have been successful enough to try across the country. McDonald’s keeps trading higher in the meantime, right below its all time highs at $200 on the dot. It has not had a break today, or for the past 16 years, except maybe briefly from 2012 to 2016 where it traded steady pretty much.
Uber Drivers Want in on IPO, Despite Enormous Losses Out Wazoo
Uber’s drivers, notorious for wanting more money just like everyone else who works doing anything at all, want in on the unicorn goodness. Drivers in the US and Britain plan to “go on strike” even though anyone can just replace them on a dime by signing up on the app, so it doesn’t look like the strike will quite work so well. It’s hard to picket when everything is decentralized and there’s nowhere that scabs actually have to go, unless current Uber drivers resort to hailing rides and attacking anyone who picks them up. That doesn’t sound like such a good idea and might be considered illegal. Though considering state tolerance for union violence, maybe they’ll get away with it. Drivers and regulators have been critical of Uber for not paying drivers enough, even though the company may be the biggest, most spectacular losing business in the history of anything ever. In a bit of irony lost on a group of drivers who want more money, their announcement was “Say no to greed.” Hmm…
Bristol Myers Borrows $19 Billion To Buy Celgene
It looks like the Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) deal is going through, but in order to finance it, Bristol Myers needs to borrow $19 billion order to pay up front for a deal that will have the pharma giant take on about $32 billion in additional debt plus the $20 billion that Celgene already owes its own creditors. In order to do this, Bristol Myers is taking out a $33 billion bridge loan, the largest in history, to finance the largest pharmaceutical deal in history. How they’re going to pay it all off if interest rates rise is beyond them. This is the 10th biggest bond offering ever, but the biggest for pharma.
