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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Musk Gets Into a Tizzy Over a Blog Post

By
Carol Harper
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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, showed a bit of his temper after cancelling a blogger’s pre-order. Musk’s move was motivated by a venture capitalist who wrote about what he thought was a bad launch event for the Model X, Tesla’s most recently launched sports utility vehicle. His behavior has been termed petty by some.

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Critical Letter Written

A venture capitalist from California, Stewart Alsop, chose to write an open letter to Tesla Motors CEO on what he thought was a badly run launch event for the Model X back in September. The letter, which was headlined  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ listed his issues with the event. That included a late start and the heavy focus on safety. On that day, the showroom was so packed so much that Alsop, who placed an order for the car, failed to get any chance to test drive it.

The Californian venture capitalist deposited $5,000 for the Model X, which was to be shipped in 2013 originally. However, at the end of the last year, 2015, it only delivered 208 cars. Concluding the letter, Alsop wanted Tesla Motors to apologize to consumers who bought the car.

Banned By Tesla

The net effect of the letter was that Alsop’s pre-order was cancelled by Musk personally. However, Alsop relayed his conversation with Tesla Motors’ Musk through the phone in a follow-up post, which was titled  ‘Banned By Tesla’. He told Musk that the CEO was not comfortable in allowing Alsop to own a Tesla model car, and, therefore, cancelled his order. He expressed his surprise when he said that he was taken aback at being banned.

Alsp pointed out that an earlier incident involved posting a critical blog on the BMW X1. He said that BMW’s CEO did not take the vehicle back despite his criticism.

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GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) Suffers Loss in Fourth Quarter

By
Carol Harper
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GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (NYSE:GSK)
GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) suffered a net loss of £428 million or a loss of 7.3 pence a share in the fourth quarter. By comparison, the company earned a profit of £1.03 billion or 21.5 pence a share in the same quarter last year. The British firm blamed the loss on integration costs of new businesses.

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Revenue Rises Modestly

GlaxoSmithKline delivered 4% growth in its turnover to £6.286 billion up from £6.186 billion last year. However, gross profit dipped 7% to £3.745 billion from £4.157 billion during the same period. While R&D expenses grew 9% to £1.05 billion from £979 million, selling, general and administrative expenses increased 15% to £2.498 billion from £2.207 billion.

Glaxo has been under pressure as it has faced increasing competition from generic drug manufacturers. Its focus has been on its strengths in the fourth quarter. Also, results came a day after the company announced its collaboration expansion with Adaptimmune Therapeutics. The objective was to lift its position in the market of oncology. The alliance would fuel Adaptimmune powered T-cell receptor therapy for cancer treatment.

Outlook For 2016

Glaxo further said that it continued to see earnings percentage reaching double-digit growth on a constant currency basis. However, it indicated that it was fully aware of the macro-economic, as well as healthcare environment, which would remain challenging. Therefore, it said it would focus on enhancing commercial execution and realizing the gains of its restructuring and integration program.

Glaxo also expects considerable options for its new R&D portfolio of more than 40 assets. The company believes that 80% of them have the potential to be rated as first in class. The British drug company expects development milestones for assets like Daprodustat, Cabotegravir, Sirukumab, and Shingrix. It indicated that it would pay a dividend of 80 pence a share for the current year, as well as next year.

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AstraZeneca’s (NYSE:AZN) Cancer Drug to be a Growth Driver After EU Approval

By
Carol Harper
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AstraZeneca plc (ADR) (NYSE:AZN)

AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) should be a happy lot after regulators in Europe gave their approval to its lung cancer drug, Tagrisso. Tagrisso has the potential to be a key growth driver almost immediately for the pharma company. AstraZeneca considers Tagrisso to be a top seller in its portfolio though some analysts have their own doubts about its potential.

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AstraZeneca’s lung cancer drug was the first to focus on a subset of patients that develop a treatment-resistant mutation known as T790M. Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer and considered one of the deadliest. Tagrisso is the first drug to get accelerated approval from the European Medicines Agency. However, the FDA in the United States gave a green light to Tagrisso two months ago.

In 2013, the drug reached its first human trials and since then has witnessed accelerated development. The company submitted two phase 2 trial results based on a total of 474 patients enrolled. The trials indicated that the drug shrank tumors in 66% of cases. AstraZeneca is also conducting the final phase trials for Tagrisso to collect additional data on efficacy and safety.

Potential Revenue Generation

AstraZeneca thinks that the lung cancer drug has the potential to generate revenue of $3 billion in sales per year. In 2014, the company achieved total revenue of about $26 billion and planned to reach $45 billion by the turn of 2023. The drug should help the firm in achieving its ambitious target, at least to some extent.

However, some analysts appeared to be cautious on the potential sales numbers. For instance, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) analyst Andrew Baum, expects Tagrisso to fetch sales of $1 billion by the end of the decade. In any case, it will contribute to the company’s growth. By how much is the question.

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Russia Restates Its Intention To Address Oil Glut With OPEC And Non-OPEC Members

By
Andy Parker
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Oil has pared its early day losses today after Russia again showed a willingness to enter into a dialogue with OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries). The statement came after oil slipped below $30 per barrel yesterday, causing a turmoil across the world markets.

Nothing happened last time

It is to be noted that Russia had made similar statement few days back, but such reassurance failed to solidify. Now, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has yet again indicated that they are open to talk about oil output cuts if both OPEC and non-OPEC members agree. The hint coming from one of the largest producers of oil left a positive impact on the oil market, which witnessed an upswing following a slide during early trading hours today.

The Brent Crude (ICE) for April delivery was seen trading higher by 1.59% at $33.24 while the WTI Crude Oil added $0.48 to trade at $30.36.

Oil oversupply needs to be solved

According to analysts, there is an urgent need to address the oil glut scenario as the oil slide by nearly 70% over the last one and a half year has already done damage to oil-exporting nations such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia and other Gulf countries. Meanwhile, U.S. is also battling with higher oil stock reserves as its reserves increased to 500.4 million, up by 3.8 million barrels during the week ended on January 20, as per a report from the American Petroleum Institute.

Amidst the disruption in the global oil market, analysts at Morgan Stanley believe that balance between oil supply and its demand will not reach a balance until the middle of 2017. The research firm added that capex cuts alone will not bring rebalance, but action needs to be taken in containing the production as well.

Going ahead, it will be seen if Russia’s initiative will get a similar response from the OPEC nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, which has been adamant about maintaining the output. The market is hoping that Russia’s statement, this time, is legitimate.

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U.S. Stock Futures Positive But Cautious Ahead Of The Release Of Key Economic Data

By
Andy Parker
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Stocks buying right now

Even as oil prices show some reversal, there is some form of hesitation in the U.S. stock futures to blindly mirror oil ahead of the market opening today.

Gains are limited

Though the sentiment points to a rally today, the gains are limited with S&P 500 Futures up by 0.38% at 1,904 and Nasdaq Futures trading higher by 0.23% at 4,201.75. A day earlier, Dow Jones Industrial Average had closed steeply lower by 1.8%, while Nasdaq fell by 2.2%.

The key data under focus today will be ADP jobs report for the month of January alongside a report on the service sector growth rate in January to be presented by the U.S. Institute of Supply Management. Other than this, a number of renowned companies will release earnings, which will also guide the sentiment of the markets later in the day.

Update from world markets

Meanwhile, oil prices found some support after Russia again expressed its interest in discussing the oil glut situation with the OPEC and non-OPEC members. Apart from this, the market is also widely anticipating that the weekly oil supply data, which will be posted later today, might show that the crude stock piles grew at a pace slower than last week. The market has anticipated that the oil supplies will continue growth by 4.8 million barrels.

Around the globe, Asian indices remained in negative territory as any recovery in oil prices came only after the closing of the Asian markets. Most of the key indices finished the day broadly lower. At the same time, the Bank of Japan has also reiterated that it will expand its stimulus measures if deemed necessary, however, the statement barely left any impact on the markets. This was clearly visible from the direction of the European markets, which traded lower during the early part of the day but managed to shrug off those losses as oil moved above $33 per barrel.

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Advanced Micro (NASDAQ:AMD) Launches New Quiet Processors

By
Andy Parker
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Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is spoiling for a desktop processor war. The company has unveiled a portfolio of desktop processors that feature more advanced thermal solutions. The processors are priced between $70 and $200.

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With the latest processor launch, Advanced Micro can be seen taking the desktop processor to the doorstep of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). AMD’s new advanced processors include AMD Wraith Cooler, AMD A10-7860K and AMD AthlonX4 845. The company claims that the thermal solutions built into the processors ensure that they generate noise that is only a tiny fraction of their predecessors. AMD’s new processors should inspire quieter and smaller form factor desktop systems.

Wraith model

Advanced Micro’s new Wraith processor boasts an array of new features including LED lighting, attractive styling and exceptionally low noise. The processor is designed for those who care about the look, sound and speed of their desktop systems. As such, it answers a need hardcore gamers in particular.

AMD A10-7860K processor

Advanced Micro’s A10-7860K processor claims to be the first unlocked A10 processor for a desktop that features 65W TDP. The processor is designed to ensure silent operation and AMD says getting it on your system means the end of broken frames and choppy gameplays for those who play high-resource games.

The AMD A10-7860K processors features four CPU cores rated 4.0GHz and eight GPU cores rated 757MHz.

AMD Athlon X4 845

AMD’s other line of quiet desktop processors is the AMD AthlonX4 845, which is the first processor that has AMD’s Excavator x86 architecture technology. The quad-core processor delivers speeds of 3.8GHz and claims to have the highest instructions per clock (IPC) performance.

The AMD AthlonX4 845 processor was also built with gamers in mind.

According to Advanced Micro, its new lineup of desktop processors comes at surprisingly low cost. The processors are priced between $70 (AMD AthlonX4 845) and $200 (AMD FX8370).

With the low price points and thermal solution claims, Advanced Micro is hoping to alter the competition landscape for its desktop processing engine rivals.

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Will Roche (RHHBY) Acquire Pacific Biosciences (NASDAQ:PACB)?

By
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It has now emerged that Roche Holding Ltd. (RHHBY) recently conducted acquisition talks with Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ:PACB). Roche is said to be particularly interested in Pacific Biosciences’ gene-sequencing technology. The talks between the companies are only in the beginning stages and a deal may or may not happen in the end.

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Sources familiar with Roche’s overture to acquire Pacific Biosciences have also cited a disagreement between the companies over the price of the deal if it were to happen. It is not clear what Roche is proposing to offer Pacific Biosciences in a buyout transaction. It is also not clear what Pacific Biosciences is asking for in the talks.

Neither Roche nor Pacific Biosciences has been willing to comment on the rumored buyout talks.

Can Roche seek an alternative?

If talks with Pacific Biosciences break off, Roche could turn its attention to other drug companies with similar technology. At its most recent earnings call, Roche hinted that it was willing to make acquisitions, but only relatively minor ones. Pacific Biosciences has a market cap of about $785 million. If it is true that Roche is in talks with the company, it means it is theoretically willing to spent somewhere in the vicinity of $1 billion in an acquisition. There are many pharmaceutical companies Roche can acquire at that price point.

Earnings miss target

As much as Roche’s full-year 2015 sales rose 5%, earnings fell short of expectations. The management blamed adverse currency fluctuations for the miss, but it also became clear that Roche needs to boost its sales to drive bottom-line improvement. Pacific Biosciences could add the necessary fuel to Roche’s top-line growth.

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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Increases Bing Flexibility to Compete with Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

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Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing search engine is a classic example of a product that needs both change and continuity. Bing’s re-engineering process illustrates how all software is changing. The Bing team has said that one of the things holding the search engin back is stilted deployment cycle which restricts innovation. Code deployments occurred monthly and at certain times took longer to be released. Software builds consumed too much time.

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Similar to a host of modern software development the Microsoft team had to become agile which means capability to deliver new code at a daily deployment rate.

For an organization which needed four weeks or more to deploy code, this transformation wasn’t easy. There were major technological and cultural challenges to confront. At each stage of code building as well as code deploying procedure the team evaluated what could be altered, resolved or sped up to help transition to a continuous delivery model. Habits developed due to years of coding habits had to be broken.

Bing’s developers now consistently surpass their original daily targets, often delivering new code several times a day. The organization boasts of deploying code as many as 20 times a week with nearly 4000 changes implemented each week to improve search results.

For modern business applications, this number of code changes per week is a regular phenomenon. What Bing does is to make sure that each code change submission undergoes a battery of 20,000 automated tests. The whole process takes 20 minutes until the new code is accepted.

The message here for all software developers is that concepts can be tested and developed much quicker than ever before. Whether Bing can surpass Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in search is not the issue. It probably won’t, but the fact is that now software updates have to work much faster than they used to in order to survive in the modern software development space.

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Yen Backs down After Oil Trims Losses

By
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Investors’ appetite for the Japanese yen appears to be fading after oil prices swung into the green today. The U.S. Dollar gained 0.03% against the yen at 120.00, recovering from the lows of 119.42. Highly volatile oil prices have been a cause for growing demand for yen over the last several weeks. However, bargain buying led oil prices back up today, weakening the yen slightly.

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Eurozone Buzz

The euro too lost some ground against the U.S. Dollar this morning after market participants got over dovish comments by the Federal Reserve. The pair was seen trading around 1.0911, down by 0.06% or 0.0007. The two currencies are essentially flat since January 1. Medium term support and resistance is still at 1.0538 and 1.1496.

A day earlier, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer hinted at the possibility of delaying the next rate hike, which could be pushed beyond the first quarter. The statement reflected a dovish stance and is seen as critical to the market, particularly when it comes from Fischer, who is known for his relatively hawkish stance on monetary policy compared to his peers at the Fed.

In Europe, the oil rout kept markets across the region disturbed alongside a major slide in banking stocks due to major sovereign wealth redemptions.

Other currencies

The greenback remained moderately weak to flat against the British Pound this morning. GBP/USD traded up by 0.03% or 0.0005 at 1.4415. The Fed’s remarks weighed over Markit’s U.K. report, which said that the region’s construction purchasing managers’ index inched down to 55 in January from 57.8 in December, below analysts’ expectations of 57.5 for the month.

Meanwhile, the Australian Dollar traded higher against the US dollar at 0.7067, up by as much as 0.42% to 0.7067. The U.S. Dollar Index traded nearly flat around 98.89, marginally higher by 0.02% against a basket of major global currencies.

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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Challenges Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) at Work by Turning on Yammer By Default

By
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Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced the activation of Yammer, its inter-organizational social networking service, for all eligible Office 365 accounts. The move is a push to get more businesses to use Yammer over Facebook at Work. Users will now be in a position to start Yammer conversation from the Office 365 Video Portal and SharePoint. Soon Delve and Skype broadcast will be available. This will give users a simpler platform to share ideas and work together in the open by use of Yammer’s flexible workspace.

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Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ:FB) Facebook at Work also provides users a platform to create a work account, which is separate from their personal Facebook account. Through this account, a user can employ tools to interact with coworkers. What is shared using Facebook at Work is only visible to people working for the same company. Facebook at Work is expected to be fully launched later this year. The move by Microsoft is viewed as trying to get as many people on Yammer before Facebook at Work is fully launched.

Company analysts and Microsoft customers have been wondering for some time whether Microsoft was committed to the social enterprise service, which it acquired for $1.2 billion in 2012. Since then, Microsoft stated it has been working to refocus Yammer to fit around the teamwork-sharing model and folding some of its technologies into Office 365.

Last year, Microsoft had stated that the company would continue to offer a standalone Yammer client for people who wanted to use it. The company has outlined a roadmap for Yammer, which included commitment to bring Yammer into Microsoft’s fold by moving Microsoft’s data centers and integrating the Azure Active Directory with Yammer service.

By June 2016, Microsoft is aiming to tie Yammer into the Office 365 Group. Once this happens, Microsoft plans to encourage users to take advantage of a ‘cross-suite scenario’. This will include moving Yammer conversation to Skype call, access files via OneDrive, schedule meetings using the Outlook calendar and create tasks in Planner. All this is set to be doable through Yammer/365.

 

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