Markets
markets
David Crowther
3h

Novo jumps after Wegovy pill shows significant weight loss in trial, Ozempic found to reduce risk of heart attacks and strokes

Danish GLP-1 trailblazer Novo Nordisk was trading as much as 7% higher early on Thursday after releasing two positive study results.

Arguably the most commercially significant of the two, Novo yesterday revealed that its oral semaglutide treatment (“Wegovy in a pill”) delivered “16.6% weight loss in people with obesity” in a new study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Results also showed that one in three participants reported losing 20% or more of their body weight.

According to the company’s press release, the Wegovy pill is the first oral GLP-1 treatment submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for chronic weight management, and the drugmaker has now started production in the US.

A total of 307 adults took part in the 64-week study, which found that:

...if all participants adhered to treatment, average weight loss of 16.6% was achieved by people taking oral semaglutide 25 mg compared to 2.7% for placebo at 64 weeks, with over a third (34.4%) experiencing a weight loss of 20% or more, versus 2.9% for placebo.

Crucially, Novo stated that these results were comparable with previous trial results of injectable Wegovy.

In an interview with CNBC, the company’s Chief Science Officer, Martin Holst Lange, said: “Our job was to show that, with the tablet, we could get the same efficacy and the same safety and tolerability as we can with the injectable. That we have now done.”

Separately, Novo Nordisk reported this morning that the once-weekly injectable version of Ozempic was “associated with a 23% reduced risk of heart attack, stroke and death in people with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease on Medicare versus dulaglutide.”

Novo’s shares have been under intense pressure over the last year, as competition from rival pharma giants like Eli Lilly and compounders such as Hims & Hers has weighed on the company’s market position.

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markets
Luke Kawa
23m

Rigetti Computing jumps on $5.8 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance quantum networking

Shares of Rigetti Computing are rallying in premarket trading after the company announced that it won a three-year, $5.8 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) “to advance superconducting quantum networking.”

The quantum computing company plans to collaborate with Dutch startup QphoX on this endeavor.

“This project aims to deliver systems providing entanglement between superconducting qubits and optical photons, the essential building block of quantum networking,” per Rigetti’s press release.

This less than $6 million contract has seen Rigetti’s market cap swell by about $250 million.

“We are very pleased that AFRL is supporting this technology, which is important for the US to maintain its global leadership in quantum information science,” Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, CEO of Rigetti, said.

As gate-model quantum computers have not yet demonstrated much aptitude for commercial applications, governments and research organizations are key ways these companies make money.

Peer IonQ is also continuing its romp higher on news that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Energy “to advance the development and deployment of quantum technologies in space.”

markets
Luke Kawa
2h

Intel spikes on Nvidia’s plan to invest $5 billion as part of a partnership to develop data center and PC products

Shares of Intel are mooning as the chipmaker has successfully hitched its wagon to the biggest star in the semiconductor space: Nvidia.

In a joint press release, the two companies announced “a collaboration to jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products that accelerate applications and workloads across hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets” that will also see Nvidia purchase $5 billion in Intel stock at a price of $23.28.

“We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the NVIDIA team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to the work ahead as we innovate for customers and grow our business,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said.

Shares of Intel were up as much as 34% in premarket trading, which, if sustained, would be the biggest one-day gain for the stock ever, surpassing the 26.4% gain on October 29, 1987.

“The chip landscape remains NVDA’s world with everybody else paying rent as more sovereigns and enterprises wait in line for the most advanced chips in the world,” said Dan Ives, senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities. “Today’s announcement further strengthens the US lead in the AI Arms Race against China as Intel now goes from a laggard to a catalyst.”

This deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, would make the chip designer one of Intel’s largest shareholders, behind only index fund providers BlackRock and Vanguard, and also the US government.

Intel and Nvidia plan to codesign two products:

  • Custom-made CPUs for data centers that Nvidia would integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms, and

  • System-on-chips for PCs that integrate Nvidia’s RTX GPUs for better performance.

“This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. “Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

Advanced Micro Devices sank on this news, as the hits seemingly come on both sides: the PC-chip partnership threatens to see Intel reclaim market share from AMD in that space, while the deepening of Nvidia’s data center offerings may also further entrench its dominance in that market to AMD’s detriment.

“For Intel, the deal provides a lifeline for its struggling AI GPU efforts and a potential lift in AI PC share,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kunjan Sobhani and Oscar Hernandez Tejada wrote. “For Nvidia, it secures a path to remain central in AI compute regardless of whether x86, Arm or custom CPUs dominate, by embedding NVLink and CUDA deeper into the ecosystem.”

markets
Claire Yubin Oh
3h

IONQ rises after signing agreement with Department of Energy to advance the development and deployment of quantum tech in space

IonQ shares are 6% higher in pre-market trading on Thursday after the quantum computing company signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Energy “to advance the development and deployment of quantum technologies in space.”

Per the “understanding”, IonQ will design and execute an orbital demonstration of quantum-secure communications using its satellite platform, as well as explore other quantum applications in space.

“This Collaboration is about turning possibility into practice and learning by doing,” said Rima Kasia Oueid, DOE Senior Commercialization Executive and lead architect of the Quantum-in-Space Collaboration. “By bringing in new partners, we are accelerating commercialization, demonstrating applications like secure quantum communications, advanced quantum PNT, and quantum sensing, and expanding America’s role in the space economy."

Alongside IonQ, the DoE announced new partnerships with Honeywell and the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga as part of its Quantum-In-Space initiative, an effort to push US leadership in space-based quantum technologies. Other stocks in the sector, such as Rigettiand D-Wave Quantum are also rising more modestly this morning, with the latter building on yesterday’s 18% gain, which came as part of a wave of bullish options bets.

Separately, yesterday, IonQ announced plans to acquire quantum sensor company Vector Atomic in an all-stock deal worth approximately $400 million, which Needham analysts said could help support IonQ secure government contracts and projects in the future.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa
17h
US stocks dip as rate cut fails to ignite broad enthusiasm

The S&P 500 fell 0.1%, the Nasdaq 100 gave back 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.2% advance, though it was up more than 2% at its highs of the day.

Brown bear (Ursus arctos) looks out of its den in the woods under a large rock in winter
markets
Nia Warfield
17h

Walmart hits all-time high following Bank of America boosting its price target

Walmart shares touched an intraday all-time record of $106.11 before settling lower for the close, missing its previous record closing price of $105.05 on February 13 of this year.

The rally came after Bank of America lifted its price target on Walmart to $125 from $120 and stuck with its “buy” rating. Analysts said Walmart is emerging as a leader in “agentic AI commerce,” pointing to its GenAI assistant, Sparky, which offers occasion-based recommendations and help shoppers plan, compare, and buy products.

Analysts also flagged Walmart’s sheer scale, backed by data from 180 million customers, and its fast-growing delivery business as major competitive advantages. Beyond AI, the fundamentals are catching eyes, too. Walmart’s food delivery arm is already profitable, reaching 95% of US households within three hours and a quarter of customers in under 30 minutes.

The note also highlighted Walmart’s cushion against tariffs, since two-thirds of its products are sourced domestically, and pointed to its new Synchrony Financial-backed credit card as another way to juice membership growth.

The stock is up over 16% year to date and has more than doubled since 2020.

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