Plus, the Labor Department reported nonfarm payrolls rose by just 49,000 in January, GameStop shares are up after Robinhood removed trading restrictions on the stock, and Teradata shares are up more than 32% this morning.
Stocks were higher to start Friday with the Dow gaining 79 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 added 0.25%, while the Nasdaq rose 0.2%.
Johnson & Johnson shares are up today after the pharmaceutical giant applied for an emergency use authorization from the FDA for its coronavirus vaccine after releasing data last week showing the shot was about 66% effective in protecting against the virus and 100% effective at preventing death from COVID-19. “Today’s submission for Emergency Use Authorization of our investigational single-shot COVID-19 vaccine is a pivotal step toward reducing the burden of disease for people globally and putting an end to the pandemic,” said J&J chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels. “Upon authorization of our investigational COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, we are ready to begin shipping. With our submission to the FDA and our ongoing reviews with other health authorities around the world, we are working with great urgency to make our investigational vaccine available to the public as quickly as possible.”
Disappointing. The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls rose by just 49,000 in January following a downwardly revised 227,000 December decrease. The unemployment rate fell to 6.3% as more people left the workforce. Economists had expected a reading of growth of 50,000, though Citigroup had projected a gain of 250,000. “Though we gained jobs in January after a December loss, this is not a we’ve-turned-the-corner report,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “We especially shouldn’t take solace that the unemployment rate fell dramatically given that’s mainly because more Americans dropped out of the labor force.”
The disappointing growth in the U.S. labor market last month underscores the need to deliver more fiscal support to the economy, according to a senior economic adviser to President Joe Biden. “The numbers that we got this morning early do underscore the cost of inaction,” said Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “The January numbers are quite disappointing. They show that the pace of job growth is slow.” Biden’s push for big stimulus was helped by the Senate, which voted to approve a budget resolution early Friday in a 51-50 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, moving toward passing a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill after a marathon of votes on dozens of amendments. “I am so thankful that our caucus stayed together in unity,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after the vote. “We had no choice given the problems facing America and the desire to move forward. And we have moved forward.”
GameStop shares are up nearly 22% at the time of writing after climbing more than 40% in early trading after Robinhood removed trading restrictions on all stocks including the video game retailer. The trading app introduced restrictions last week after a tidal wave of retail investors inspired by the WallStreetBets subreddit piled into GameStop and some of the market’s other most heavily shorted stocks. The surge in trading pushed GameStop’s sock far higher last week, and Robinhood co-founder and co-CEO Vlad Tenev said the company’s operations team received a request last Thursday from the National Securities Clearing Corp for a security deposit of $3 billion to back up trades, “an order of magnitude more than what it typically is,” forcing it to temporarily halt trading on the stock in order to raise the necessary capital. “We had no choice in this case,” Tenev said in an interview on Clubhouse with Elon Musk. “We had to conform to our regulatory capital requirements.”
And Teradata is up more than 32% this morning after the cloud provider posted revenue of $495 million, beating Wall Street’s estimate for $475 million, and said its public-cloud-based annual recurring revenue was $106 million, up 165% from a year earlier. “Our Cloud-First focus has been recognized by our customers and the marketplace,” Teradata CEO Steve McMillan said in a statement. “Our cloud momentum has contributed to another strong quarter of performance, as we exceeded quarterly expectations for recurring revenue, profitability and free cash flow.”
Stocks We’re Watching
AudioEye Inc (NASDAQ: AEYE): AudioEye shares are up nearly 21% this week after the company announced the next generation of is technology platform and service plans, designed to help organizations of any size achieve and maintain accessibility compliance. “2020 was a pivotal year for AudioEye. We saw tremendous interest in our accessibility solutions and grew our customer base by more than 25,000 new organizations, ranging from the largest enterprises to the smallest start-ups,” said David Moradi, AudioEye’s interim CEO. “To meet this growing demand, we’ve brought on a team of new leaders who will be critical to scaling our platform and partner integrations in the coming year. Our goal is to combine our deep industry knowledge with the latest AI technology to make the Internet more accessible for everyone.”