TG Therapeutics net loss improves in Q4

TG Therapeutics (TGTX) Q4 results:

Revenues: $0.04M (unch).

Net loss: ($39.6M) (+26.5%); loss/share: ($0.44) (+35.3%); Quick Assets: $140.4M (+103.8%).

Key Objectives for 2020: Report topline PFS results from the Phase 3 UNITY-CLL trial, and if successful, target a potential NDA/BLA submission by year-end.

Complete rolling NDA submission for umbralisib in patients with previously treated MZL and FL, in H1.

Report topline results from the Phase 3 ULTIMATE I & II trials in RMS, in H2.

Previously: TG Therapeutics EPS misses by $0.02 (March 3)

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3547937-tg-therapeutics-net-loss-improves-in-q4

Thermo Fisher to buy Qiagen for €10.4B

While talks broke off late last year, Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) is acquiring Dutch molecular-testing firm Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) for €10.4B, including assumed debt.

Investors would get €39 for every Qiagen share, 23% higher than Monday’s closing price.

It’s the second major transaction in the healthcare sector this week after Gilead Sciences agreed to buy Forty Seven for about $4.9B to advance into cancer treatments.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3547860-thermo-fisher-to-buy-qiagen-for-10_4b

Trump attacks Fed, doubles down on call for ‘big rate cut’

President Trump attacked the Fed in an overnight tweet, and called again for a large cut in interest rates, writing: “Australia’s Central Bank cut interest rates and stated it will most likely further ease in order to make up for China’s Coronavirus situation and slowdown. They reduced to 0.5%, a record low. Other countries are doing the same thing, if not more so.” “Our Federal Reserve has us paying higher rates than many others, when we should be paying less. Tough on our exporters and puts the USA at a competitive disadvantage. Must be the other way around. Should ease and cut rate big. Jerome Powell led Federal Reserve has called it wrong from day one. Sad!”

Australia cut rates yesterday, and the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan have also signaled rate cuts.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell issued a brief statement last Friday in which he said that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong, but the Fed is monitoring the economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak. “We will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.” See the full statement. However, earlier that day, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in a speech that for the time being, monetary policy was fine due to previous rate cuts.

Meanwhile, the OECD has reduced its estimate of global growth, and Goldman Sachs believes there will be zero corporate earnings growth in 2020, in contrast to the consensus.

Most expect the Fed to ease policy in March, anticipating a 25 basis point cut, with some, such as Bank of America, predicting a 50 basis point cut.

This is not the first time President Trump has attacked the Fed Chairman or called for rate cuts. Yesterday, President Trump said the Fed has been slow to act. The day before, he called for the Fed to cut rates, and on Friday he said he hopes the Fed will ‘get involved soon’ over markets.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3547867-trump-attacks-fed-doubles-down-on-call-for-big-rate-cut

Global shares extend rebound on hopes of G7 support

Global shares and oil prices extended their rebound on Tuesday on mounting speculation policymakers around the world would move to ease the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus, ahead of a conference call by Group of Seven heads.

Finance ministers from the group are expected to hold a conference call on Tuesday (1200 GMT), sources said, to discuss measures to deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
“There are hopes that G7 countries will take some sort of coordinated actions to fight the virus, possibly including fiscal spending,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management.
The European Central Bank on Monday joined the chorus of central banks signalling a readiness to deal with the growing threats from the outbreak.
Earlier messages from the U.S. Federal Reserve that it was prepared to act weighed on the greenback against many other major currencies.
The improved mood supported U.S. S&P 500 futures, which rose 0.3% in early Asian trade on Tuesday, a day after the S&P 500 gained 4.60%, the biggest gain since December 2018.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 1.0%.
South Korea’s Kospi added 1.3% and Australian shares advanced 1.6% ahead of an expected rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Japan’s Nikkei lost steam after short-covering ran its course, trading almost flat having given up earlier gains of 1.8%.
The rout in global stocks last week had already prompted Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to flag a readiness to move.
Money markets are fully pricing in an cut of at least 0.25 percentage point to the current 1.50%-1.75% target rate at the Fed’s March 17-18 meeting as well as a 0.10 percentage point cut to the ECB’s key rate at March 12 meeting.
The frantic moves by policymakers reflected growing fears that the disruption to supply chains, factory output and global travel caused by the new epidemic could deal a serious blow to a world economy trying to recover from the U.S.-China trade war.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on Monday cut its forecast of global economic growth this year to 2.4%, the lowest since 2009 and down from a forecast of 2.9% in November.
Coronavirus is now spreading much more rapidly outside China than within the country, leading the world into uncharted territory, although the World Health Organization (WHO) has so far stopped short of calling it a pandemic.
In the United States, six people in the Seattle area have died of the illness caused by the new coronavirus, as authorities across the country scrambled to prepare for more infections.
“It would be myopic to think that (economic) policy actions alone will bring back calmness to markets. The reality is, the coronavirus is still spreading,” said Takehiko Masuzawa, head of sales trading for Japanese clients at Macquarie in Tokyo.

FED RATE CUTS

The rebound in global stock prices saw U.S. bond yields roll back some of their sharp falls.

The 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield retreated to 1.135% from a record low of 1.030% marked on Monday. The rate-sensitive two-year notes yield jumped back to 0.859% from Monday’s 3 1/2-year low of 0.710%.
Still, the 10-year and two-year yields are down more than 40 and 50 basis points, respectively, from about two weeks ago.
April Fed funds rate futures still price in about 80% chance of a 0.50 percentage point cut this month and a total of almost 1 percentage point cuts by the end of year.
Expectations of Fed rate cuts prompted investors to cut their exposure to the dollar.
Against the yen, the dollar lost 0.3% to 107.97 yen, slipping towards a five-month low of 107 set on Monday.
The euro stood at $1.1139, having hit an eight-week peak of $1.1185.
The Australian dollar dropped 0.3% to $0.6517, less than a cent above an 11-year low of $0.64345 set on Friday.
Australia’s central bank is widely expected to cut the policy interest rate to 0.5% from 0.75%, already at a record low.
Oil prices bounced back further after a jump of more than 4% on Monday, reversing an early decline to multi-year lows.
Hopes of a deeper output cut by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and central banks’ policy measures countered fears of slower growth.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 2.6% to $47.96 a barrel, up sharply from Monday’s low of $43.32 a barrel, which was the lowest since December 2018.
While the coronavirus continues to dominate investor attention, focus has also swung to Super Tuesday in the United States, the biggest day in the Democratic primary elections to choose a challenger to President Donald Trump.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/global-shares-extend-rebound-on-hopes-of-g7-support-idUSKBN20Q02V

More testing sheds light on how virus is spreading in US

An increase in testing for the coronavirus began shedding light Monday on how the illness has spread in the United States, including among nursing home residents in one Washington state facility.

U.S. health officials updated the number of COVID-19 cases to 91 in 10 states after Oregon and Illinois announced new diagnoses. Seattle officials announced four more deaths, bringing the total in the U.S. to six.
King County Executive Dow Constantine declared an emergency and said the county was buying a hotel to be used as a hospital for patients who need to be isolated. He said the facility should be available by the end of the week.
“We have moved to a new stage in the fight,” he said.
Vice President Mike Pence met with the nation’s governors and pledged to continue updating them by teleconference on a weekly basis.
The nursing home cases especially troubled health care experts because of the vulnerability of sick and elderly people to the illness and existing problems in nursing facilities.
“It’s going to be a disaster,” said Charlene Harrington, who studies nursing homes at the University of California at San Francisco. Infection is already a huge problem in U.S. nursing homes because of a lack of nurses and training.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the case count includes 45 infections among people who were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is one more than previously reported. It also includes people who tested positive after returning from travel to outbreak areas in other parts of the world, their close contacts, and what appear to be infections from community spread—people who did not travel and did not have known contact with other infected people.

The CDC recently broadened its guidelines for who should be tested for the new virus to include people with symptoms but without a travel history to virus hot zones.
More testing will bring more confirmed cases, experts said, but they cautioned that does not mean the virus is gaining speed. Instead, the testing is likely to reveal a picture of the virus’ spread that was previously invisible.
In Seattle, schools and one skyscraper closed, but health experts cautioned that closures can have downsides.
On Monday, the F5 technology company said it was closing its 44-story tower in downtown Seattle after learning an employee had been in contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. The employee tested negative, but company spokesman Rob Gruening said the tower was closed as a precaution.
More than 10 schools in the Seattle area were closed for deep cleaning over virus concerns, although the city-county public health department said it was not yet recommending school closures or cancellation of activities.
Closing schools or large gatherings are what’s called social distancing, the idea that distancing people will reduce spread.
“The evidence for these measures are not as strong as we would like it to be,” Jennifer Nuzzo of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security cautioned Monday during a webinar.
Measures such as school closures have been used during flu outbreaks, and the new coronavirus isn’t acting exactly like flu. Moreover, they have downsides.

“Maybe it makes people more likely to stay at home. Maybe it doesn’t if people re-congregate elsewhere,” Nuzzo said.
Closing schools also leaves health care workers, first responders and others without child care, making it difficult for them to come to work.
On Capitol Hill, negotiations on a bipartisan, emergency $7 billion to $8 billion measure to battle the virus are almost complete, according to both Democratic and GOP aides. The measure appears on track to be unveiled as early as Tuesday, and the hope is to speed it quickly through both House and Senate by the end of the week.
The measure would finance both federal and state response efforts, fund the federal government‘s drive to develop and produce a vaccine, and offer Small Business Administration disaster loans to help businesses directly affected by the virus crisis.
At the Pentagon, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told reporters that the COVID-19 outbreak has had little impact on the U.S. military. “Right now the overall broad impact to the U.S. uniformed military is very, very minimal. That’s not to say it’s zero,” he said.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams discussed the virus Monday during a stop in Connecticut, where he was touring the state public health laboratory.
“Caution, preparedness, but not panic,” Adams said. “That’s how we’re going to successfully navigate this coronavirus situation.”
Adams and state Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell urged the public to take precautions such as washing hands, elbow “bumping” instead of hand shaking and getting flu shots. They said flu shots would decrease the number of people hospitalized because of flu and free up space, if needed, to treat patients sickened by the coronavirus.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-virus.html

Pfizer IDs some antiviral compounds with potential as coronavirus treatment

Drugmaker Pfizer Inc said on Monday that it identified certain antiviral compounds it had in development that have the potential to inhibit coronaviruses and is engaging with a third party to screen the compounds.

The company said it hopes to have the results from that screening by the end of March and if any of the compounds are successful, it would hope start testing them by the end of the year.
Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten was one of a number of pharmaceutical executives who met with U.S. President Trump at the White House on Monday.

https://www.marketscreener.com/PFIZER-INC-23365019/news/Pfizer-identified-some-antiviral-compounds-with-potential-as-coronavirus-treatments-30096488/

Top central banks appear primed to act to combat coronavirus risk

The world’s top three central banks look set to take steps to limit the economic damage from the fast-spreading coronavirus, with the heads of the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan issuing emergency statements on Monday that echoed one from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell late last week.

The day kicked off with BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pledging to take actions as needed to stabilize markets jolted by the coronavirus outbreak, and ECB President Christine Lagarde followed suit late in the day with a comparable statement. Powell on Friday promised the Fed would “act as appropriate” to support the U.S. economy.
“We stand ready to take appropriate and targeted measures, as necessary and commensurate with the underlying risks,” Lagarde said in a statement issued shortly after U.S. stock markets closed. “The coronavirus outbreak is a fast developing situation, which creates risks for the economic outlook and the functioning of financial markets.”
The reassurances from the world’s leading finance officials were a main catalyst behind Monday’s global rebound in stock markets, which had suffered breathtaking losses in late February as it became evident the virus would not be contained to its original epicenter in China.
Powell, Kuroda and Lagarde will also join finance ministers and other central bankers from the world’s seven largest economies on a call on Tuesday to discuss the widening crisis. The virus has spread to 60 countries, killed more than 3,000 people and has upended global supply chains.
What action they will take and how soon remains an open question, especially given that all three are already operating with precious little ammunition in their policy arsenals. Of the three, the Fed is the only one with a policy interest rate above zero, and between them their balance sheets are stuffed with more than $14 trillion of assets.
Nonetheless, economists and investors have taken their statements and the hastily organized G7 call as a strong signal that coordinated policy action is coming sooner rather than later.
“The news of tomorrow’s G-7 finance minister and central banker call to discuss a coordinated response clearly increases the potential that the Fed could move this week,” JPMorgan’s chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli said in a note.
“We believe a 25-basis point move would risk disappointing markets and thereby tightening financial conditions.”
“Arguably the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) should do even more than the 50 basis points expected by us and the market.”
Pricing in interest rate futures tied to the Fed’s policy support a 100% chance of a half percentage-point rate cut at the Fed’s March 17-18 meeting, and another half a percentage point-cut by July. The Fed’s current overnight borrowing rate is set in a range of 1.50-1.75%.
Goldman Sachs’ economists Jan Hatzius and Daan Struyven said the Fed may not wait until its scheduled March meeting, however.
“Chair Powell’s statement on Friday suggests to us that global central bankers are intensely focused on the downside risks from the virus,” Hatzius and Struyven said in a note.
WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO?
There are doubts about how effective rate cuts could be.
That is partly because of the nature of the threat: Central bank and fiscal policy can boost demand by lowering the cost of borrowing and putting money in people’s wallets. But they cannot repair disrupted global supply chains or convince people to fly, attend meetings or even go to school, especially if local governments or companies bar such activities.
Indeed, with rates in Japan and Europe already in negative territory, those doubts are even more amplified, suggesting the BOJ and ECB will seek alternatives to simply cutting rates.
Lagarde’s hint that the bank would take “targeted” measures suggests it could opt for tools that more directly impact the ailing economy, such as ultra cheap loans tailored for firms or more liquidity operations to bolster the economy.
They could also include further corporate debt purchases or an increase in the exemption from the ECB’s punitive charge on commercial banks’ excess reserves.
The ECB’s key rate is already at a record low minus 0.5% and a reduction would not do much more than signal determination to provide stimulus. Markets have already fully priced in a 10-basis-point rate cut at the ECB’s March 12 meeting.
In Japan, Kuroda’s remarks appeared focused on keeping markets functioning smoothly.
“The BOJ will monitor developments carefully, and strive to stabilize markets and offer sufficient liquidity via market operations and asset purchases,” he said.
That suggested the BOJ, which meets March 18-19, will make full use of existing tools to flood markets with funds, before pondering additional monetary easing steps.
Indeed, the BOJ subsequently offered 500 billion yen ($4.62 billion) in two-week funds via market operations. Investors also expect the central bank to ramp up daily purchases of exchange- traded funds (ETF) to put a floor on stock prices.
“Kuroda’s statement focused on market operations and asset purchases, which meant the BOJ may make its ETF buying more flexible to support stock markets or take steps to avoid money markets from tightening,” said Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.

https://www.marketscreener.com/EURO-JAPANESE-YEN-EUR-4592/news/Top-central-banks-appear-primed-to-act-to-combat-coronavirus-risk-30096880/