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Claire Yubin Oh2h

Moderna jumps after settling Covid vaccine patent dispute

Moderna is up 4.8% at 5 a.m. ET in premarket trading after the pharma giant said on Tuesday that it had reached a deal to resolve a patent dispute related to the technology behind key Covid vaccine models.

Moderna will pay $950 million upfront, and a further $1.3 billion down the line, depending on the result of a separate appeal, to Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences to resolve all related disputes across its Spikevax^® and mRESVIA^® models. The settlement comes with no further royalties, which the company said in a press release would provide “certainty going forward for Moderna's full infectious disease portfolio.” That said, if Moderna’s appeal, based on its government-contractor immunity defense limits, ultimately prevails, the two biotech companies will refund the payment in full, including interest.

The $950 million charge is expected to be recorded in Q1 2026, per the company’s press release, leading Moderna to adjust its cash and cash equivalents expectations in the current calendar year to fall between $4.5 and $5 billion. Still, as analysts at William Blair observed late Tuesday, the total settlement amount is “worse than feared” — a take investors seem to be getting onboard with.

Noting that Moderna is driving towards its goal to break even in 2028, CEO Stéphane Bancel commented: “resolving this legacy matter from our pandemic response removes uncertainty and allows us to turn our full focus to Moderna's exciting near-term future.”

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Luke Kawa, Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks fall in another volatile trading session as the war in Iran continues into its fourth day

Stocks pared steeper losses after President Trump said in a Truth Social post that the US Navy would escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

Bear Roar

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Oil to lows and stocks to highs of day after President Trump says US will insure and escort oil tankers through the Gulf

West Texas Intermediate futures dipped to their lowest level of the day while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF continued to pare losses after US President Donald Trump ordered immediate action to improve the flow of oil to global markets, as the US-Iran conflict caused shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to slow to a crawl.

In a Truth Social post, the president said the US International Development Finance Corp. would provide “political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially Energy, traveling through the Gulf,” adding that the US Navy would escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible, if necessary.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas explained that having oil-producing countries in the region able to reload crude on tankers is critical to avoiding production shut-ins.

Of course, there is a risk of unintended consequences from a heightened US presence in the region’s most strategically important area, from the perspective of global markets, during a time of kinetic military action. US naval escorts through the strait could dramatically increase the risk of an incident that massively escalates the conflict.

War has pushed global markets into the danger zone

Correlations within the US stock market and between asset classes are rising.

Screaming Man

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Max Knoblauch20h

Versant climbs in its first quarter after spin-off, announces dividend and $1 billion stock buyback

Versant Media, the owner of cable TV assets including CNBC, MS Now, and Golf Channel, reported its first earnings since spinning off from Comcast earlier this year. The stock climbed 3% after markets opened.

Investors appear to like Versant’s $1 billion stock buyback plan and its newly announced quarterly dividend of $0.375 per share.

Versant reported Q4 revenue of $1.55 billion, shy of the $1.56 billion expected by analysts polled by FactSet. The company posted earnings of $0.72 per share in the quarter, below estimates of $0.96 per share.

MS Now, formerly MSNBC, was the most watched news channel on election night in November, Versant said. The network will launch a direct-to-consumer platform later this year.

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Energy price spike on Mideast war has traders betting on no Fed cuts through June

A war in the Middle East, and the resultant upward pressure on oil prices, has caused traders to reverse bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in the first half of this year.

The prediction market-implied odds of a rate cut in June are less than 45% on Tuesday morning. Last week, the odds of a rate cut in June were around 60%. This comes as US national average gasoline prices rose 3.7% on Monday, their biggest one-day jump since 2005, according to data from the American Automobile Association.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

In the short term, higher energy prices put upward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on economic activity. Higher gasoline prices reduce households’ ability to spend more on other discretionary goods and services.

Normally, Fed officials would want to “look through” the impact of higher energy prices as a temporary source of upward pressure on inflation that is not indicative of the underlying trend. That’s why energy (and food) prices are stripped out of core inflation. However, this time might be different:

Inflation has run above the Federal Reserve’s target for a prolonged period.
The central bank is a little scarred by the un-transitory and severe postpandemic inflation (which was meaningfully accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).
Monetary policymakers were already signaling that the stabilization in jobs data and previous cuts, which brought their policy rate closer to a neutral setting, meant the bar for additional easing was higher.

“I think the Fed will be reluctant to elevate growth over inflation risks right now,” wrote Neil Dutta, head of US economics at Renaissance Macro Research. “Cuts have been a close-call as it is; thus, it’s tough to look through inflation when you are coming off a period of high inflation.”

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