markets

J. Edward Moreno

2/21/25

Hims & Hers falls, Novo Nordisk rises after FDA says Ozempic shortage is over

The popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are no longer in a shortage, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday, making it more difficult for telepharmacies to sell copycat versions.

Shares of Novo Nordisk, the company that makes those drugs, shot up by more than 5% in early trading. Hims & Hers, an online pharmacy that sells compound versions of Novo’s drugs, fell by more than 20%.

The move means that compounding pharmacies no longer have permission to make exact copies of Ozempic and Wegovy. There are still loopholes, though, that could allow pharmacies like Hims & Hers to continue selling compounding versions, like if they add or remove an ingredient based on a patient’s need. If a patient is allergic to a nonactive ingredient in a drug that’s not in shortage, for example, a compounding pharmacy can still sell a version without that ingredient.

Hims & Hers — which has gone all-in on selling weight-loss drugs — did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its CEO, Andrew Dudum, has previously told Bloomberg he expects the company to offer compounded weight-loss drugs “indefinitely,” even after the shortages are lifted, as long as they’re customized for each patient.

Dudum confirmed in a Friday statement on X that the company will “continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs.” He noted that there might be future shortages given that Novo said in its 2025 outlook, released earlier this month, that it may face “capacity limitations” on Ozempic and Wegovy.

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markets

2h

Why Apple usually falls on a new iPhone launch

You can only shock the world so many times, and a thinner phone with a better camera isn’t always going to cut it.

That, in short, is why Apple has tended to go down on days when it’s introduced a new iPhone to the world, as this great chart from Bespoke Investment Group shows:

Bespoke iPhone announcement Apple performance — Source: Bespoke Investment Group

On average, the tech giant falls 0.4% on the release date and is negative more than 70% of the time, perhaps a useful tidbit on this, the day of the iPhone 17 launch.

One more thing....

A potentially complicating factor to the aforementioned data is that Apple has often done quite well in the six months leading up to a new iPhone announcement, roughly 5 percentage points better than its typical six-month return, as shown above. That’s not the case this time, with Apple shares up about 5% over the past six months compared to a typical near 20% advance in the prelude to a new iPhone drop.

So it’s not like expectations about how big of a catalyst this can be for the company are sky-high and due for a sharp retrenchment, especially given Apple’s relatively lackluster progress in developing AI capabilities relative to its megacap tech peers. But a seemingly low bar to clear hasn’t necessarily been a boon for the company on the big day, either.

In any event, staring too closely at the minutiae of all this may be missing the forest for the trees.

“While this info may be helpful to traders, we doubt it’s something that long-term shareholders are too worried about given the huge compounding returns the stock has provided during the iPhone era,” Bespoke wrote.

Negative US payroll revisions as bad as 2009 add to fears of consumer spending slowdown

Reconciling the spending versus jobs trends is the key question for US economic analysts.

Yellow traffic light against an office building

markets

4h

Planet Labs slips after big post-earnings gain

Smallish midcap satellite imagery and data company Planet Labs is giving back a chunk of the nearly 50% gain it racked up after posting earnings early Monday.

No tears, though: the shares, which seem to have a fairly robust retail following, are still up roughly 340% over the past 12 months.

Retail darling Planet Labs soars on earnings pop for second straight quarter

Retail darling Planet Labs soars on earnings pop for second straight quarter

markets

5h

CoreWeave soars as Microsoft’s deal with Nebius shows unrelenting demand for AI compute

CoreWeave is soaring as Microsoft’s $17.4 billion deal with Nebius shows the immense value and continued demand for all parts of the AI data center ecosystem.

One additional reason for CoreWeave’s jump may be that its pending acquisition of AI data center infrastructure company Core Scientific looks like a great deal compared to Microsoft’s renting of (more broad and advanced) AI data center capacity from Nebius.

CoreWeave’s all-stock deal to buy Core Scientific was initially valued at ~$9 billion, but with the subsequent decline in its shares, it’s worth about 40% less. And in purchasing Core Scientific, CoreWeave is saving $10 billion in what it would have paid the company to lease data center infrastructure over the next 12 years.

As it stands, Microsoft is getting about 300 megawatts in data center power capacity from Nebius, while Core Scientific boasts that its footprint is in excess of 1,300 megawatts. So, on the surface, it looks like an absolute steal for CoreWeave.

But again, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison; not all access to AI computing infrastructure is created equal.

There are differences in the type of AI infrastructure provided by the two: Nebius owns GPUs, while Core Scientific doesn’t, and what it provides in the software layer isn’t offered by Core Scientific as a stand-alone entity. This is the difference between the “full stack” approach (Nebius) and a “colocation” approach (Core Scientific).

That being said, CoreWeave’s acquisition of Core Scientific, once completed, will make the combined entity’s business model look more like Nebius’ model, which, as Microsoft just told us, is something that top hyperscalers are willing to pay a pretty penny for.

markets

J. Edward Moreno

6h

UNH rises after preliminary data shows most Medicare Advantage enrollees will be on more lucrative, top-rated plans

UnitedHealth rose more than 4% in premarket trading on Tuesday after the company disclosed that it expects the majority of its Medicare Advantage enrollees will be on plans rated four stars or higher in 2026.

Though the data is only preliminary, about 78% of UNH’s Medicare Advantage members are in plans rated four stars or higher, the company said in a regulatory filing Tuesday morning. On Monday, the company said it plans to reiterate its full-year guidance when it meets with investors this week.

Insurance companies that provide government-sponsored plans, like Medicare Advantage, have struggled this year amid unexpected rising costs. Plans that are rated four stars or higher earn bonus payments and are typically more lucrative for healthcare insurance providers.

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