Plus, Deutsche Bank said Volkswagen could surpass Tesla in EV sales by next year, while ARK Invest says Tesla could see $3,000 per share by 2025, and Canadian Pacific Railway is buying Kansas City Southern for $25 billion.
Stocks were mixed at the open on Monday with the Dow slid 26 points lower, or less than 0.1%. The S&P 500 traded just above the flatline, while the Nasdaq added 0.5%.
AstraZeneca finally got some good news on its COVID-19 vaccine. A large U.S. trial found that the AstraZeneca shot developed in partnership with the University of Oxford is 79% effective in preventing symptomatic illness and 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization. Data from the trial also confirmed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, with an independent board identifying no safety concerns related to the shot. The company also conducted a specific review for blood clots as well as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, an extremely rare blood clot in the brain, with the help of an independent neurologist following reports of blood clots in some people who had received the vaccine in Europe. “We are thrilled by the results we have disclosed this morning,” said Ruud Dobber, executive vice president of AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals business unity. “The plan is to file in the first half of April for the emergency use authorization and, of course, then it is in the hands of the FDA how fast they can decide about the approval. Assuming that the approval will take place in a fast way, we hope to deliver 30 million doses instantly after the EUA for Americans to get vaccinated.”
Deutsche Bank said Volkswagen could surpass Tesla in electric vehicle sales as soon as next year in a note out this morning. Volkswagen said at its “Power Day” last week that electric vehicles have become the company’s “core business,” and Deutsche Bank analysts led by Tim Rokossa said in the note that, “applying the multiples of EV pure plays such as Tesla or Nit on sales generated by the MEB platform would yield a value of almost €400.” Rokossa boosted the firm’s price target on Volkswagen by 46% to 270 euros.
Speaking of Tesla, the stock is up more than 5% this morning on a new bullish price target. ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood was out with a new price target for the EV maker this morning. Wood expects Tesla shares to hit $3,000 by 2025, implying gains of 50% a year on average between now and 2025 based on the current share price. Tesla at $3,000 would give the company a valuation of roughly $3 trillion based on shares outstanding. ARK forecasts Tesla’s unit sales to be between 5 million and 10 million vehicles in 2025, assuming increased capital efficiency, and its model does not incorporate Tesla’s utility energy storage or solar business, nor did it consider future price fluctuations for Tesla’s bitcoin holdings.
Google is losing the executive who led its ChromeOS unit. Caesar Sengupta, who currently serves as Google’s vice president and general manager of payments and the Next Billion Users unit—its initiative to make internet more accessible in developing markets—announced his resignation after 15 years with Google. Sengupta’s last day will be April 30, and he has yet to decide what he will do next. “I remain very positive about Google’s future but it’s time for me to see if I can ride without training wheels,” Sengupta wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing his departure.
And Canadian Pacific Railway has agreed to buy Kansas City Southern for $25 billion in a cash-and-stock deal to create the first rail network connecting the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As part of the deal, shareholders of Kansas City Southern will receive 0.489 of a Canadian Pacific share and $90 in cash for each KCS common share held. “The new competition we will inject into the North American transportation market cannot happen soon enough, as the new USMCA Trade Agreement among these three countries makes the efficient integration of the continent’s supply chains more important than ever before,” said Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel in a statement. “This will create the first U.S.-Mexico-Canada railroad.” Creel also added in a phone interview with Bloomberg, “I’ve had my eye on the KCS for quite some time”
Stocks We’re Watching
Chinook Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: KDNY): Chinook Therapeutics announced last week that it has enrolled the first patient with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) in its pivotal phase 3 ALIGN Study evaluating the efficacy and safety of atrasentan, a potent and selective inhibitor of the endothelin A receptor. “The initiation of the phase 3 ALIGN Study is an important milestone for Chinook as we advance our pipeline of programs for rare, severe chronic kidney diseases,” said Alan Glicklich, M.D., chief medical officer of Chinook. “Atrasentan has been studied in over 5,300 diabetic kidney disease patients in the phase 2 RADAR and phase 3 SONAR studies, demonstrating rapid, sustained proteinuria reductions of approximately 30 to 35 percent as well as improved eGFR. Importantly, treatment with atrasentan also resulted in a reduction in clinical outcomes of development of end-stage kidney disease and doubling of serum creatinine. We look forward to exploring the proteinuria-lowering, anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects of atrasentan in patients with IgA nephropathy, a serious progressive disease for which there are no approved therapies.”