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Moderna posts earnings beat but stock slips because it still doesn’t really have a product to sell

Moderna slipped in premarket trading despite beating Wall Street earnings estimates, as sales for the COVID-19 vaccine, its largest revenue driver, have slowed.

Moderna reported a loss per share of $2.52, better than the $3.12 loss per share analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The company also reported $108 million in revenue, more than the $106.2 million analysts predicted. Its revenue was the lowest its been since June 2020, before its COVID-19 vaccine was on the market.

Moderna was able to make up for slowing sales by cutting costs. The company said it would cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2027, while still upping its investment in oncology research.

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Airlines and cruise stocks surge as oil prices plunge

Travel stocks are surging on Wednesday, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures down 5% as of 12 p.m. ET, largely on commodity traders’ hopes of a resolution to the US war with Iran.

The decline comes despite the US Energy Information Administration reporting a record plunge in US crude inventories last week. As the country expands its oil exports to reduce the impact of the war in Iran, inventories have fallen by 7.9 million barrels, according to the EIA, indicating a significant drop in domestic supply wiggle room ahead of the summer driving season. Per Reuters, analysts had expected a drop of 2.9 million.

Bloomberg noted that US oil exports have been crucial in keeping global petroleum prices in check, as supply remains historically constrained due to the effective closure of the Straight of Hormuz. Typically, such a sharper-than-expected drop in inventories would cause oil futures to rise.

Today, however, that is not the case and oil’s pain is travel stocks’ gain, with US airlines and cruise lines surging higher on Wednesday. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue were all up by at least 6%, while Carnival and Norwegian were up about 7%.

Royal Caribbean pared earlier losses from Mexico’s rejection of a large planned water park, but was still down about 1%.

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Micron jumps on looming Samsung strike

Micron shares are climbing early Wednesday, breaking a sharp multiday semiconductor pullback. The rally comes amid the potential for a critical supply-side disruption at one of its largest global competitors, Samsung Electronics, as well as building investor enthusiasm ahead of Nvidia’s highly anticipated earnings report.

As demand for AI compute accelerates, Micron is increasingly viewed as a top-tier beneficiary due to its role in the critical high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market. The operational catalyst sparking Micron’s rally is a massive looming labor dispute in South Korea. According to Reuters, roughly 48,000 Samsung workers are set to begin an 18-day strike Thursday after negotiations broke down.

As global HBM production is effectively controlled by Micron, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix, any manufacturing hiccup at Samsung shifts pricing leverage to Micron. This backdrop comes as South Korea’s broader chip ecosystem is benefiting from the global infrastructure boom, pushing the country to the seventh-largest stock market in the world.

Micron has been expanding its own AI memory footprint. In March, the company completed its acquisition of PSMC’s Tongluo P5 site, a strategic integration designed to scale its domestic HBM production capacity and meet accelerating hyperscaler demand.

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