Investor Loeb cuts bearish bets to avoid short squeezes

 Billionaire investor Daniel Loeb has reduced the size of short bets on single named companies to limit the vulnerability of his hedge fund, Third Point, to short squeezes, he said in a letter on Tuesday.

"The short-selling environment is much more challenging than it has been historically," said Loeb in the letter. Analysing a company's economic prospects has taken a backseat to watching Reddit message boards and options expiries, the letter said.

A short squeeze occurs when a stock price rises so much that bearish bets become too expensive to hold and investors are forced to buy them back, sometimes at a loss.

Loeb, who runs Third Point - which had around $12.6 billion in assets under management at end-February - said his top five winners this quarter included utility Pacific Gas and Electric, tech companies Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet as well as and plumbing and heating product Ferguson.

Loeb said his worst-performing stocks for the quarter were the tech Alibaba Group Holding, bioprocessing company Danaher, Catalent, International Flavors & Fragrances and an undisclosed private position.

The nine companies did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Third Point Offshore Fund returned 1.1% for the quarter but was still down 3% for the year through June 30, according to the letter.

Almost half of Loeb's net long exposure includes companies that will benefit from developments in artificial intelligence, the letter said.

AI will need more plumbing to power programmes like Chat GPT4 as it gets better at gathering and learning on data and then, spitting out answers, the letter said.

This will benefit the biggest providers of cloud-based software which outsource servers and storage like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform, it said.

Elsewhere at Third Point, Loeb's corporate credit team returned a net 8.7% for the quarter after market instability in the March banking crisis created opportunities for the fund, Loeb said.

Loeb's residential mortgage and structured credit portfolios are both up a net 3.2% and 4.1% for the year so far, the letter said.

https://www.marketscreener.com/business-leaders/Daniel-Loeb-1612/news/Billionaire-investor-Loeb-cuts-bearish-bets-to-avoid-short-squeezes-letter--44481511/

Emergent BioSolutions Awarded 10-Year BARDA Contract Valued up to Maximum of $704 M

 Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) announced today that it was awarded a 10-year contract by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), valued at up to a maximum of $704 million, for advanced development, manufacturing scale-up, and procurement of Ebanga™ (ansuvimab-zykl), a licensed treatment for Ebola virus disease (EVD).

“For almost 25 years, Emergent has tackled the most serious diseases to assist governments in their preparedness and response strategies,” said Dr. Kelly Warfield, senior vice president, science and development at Emergent. “Ebola virus has the ability to emerge unexpectedly posing a risk to global health. Its elusive nature makes it difficult to predict when and where an outbreak may occur, which underscores the importance of preparedness efforts against this public health threat.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emergent-biosolutions-awarded-10-barda-200500489.html

'Alabama's abortion laws not behind Space Command decision -White House'

 U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to nix a Trump-era plan to move Space Command headquarters to Alabama was unrelated to restrictive abortion laws there, the White House said, as a dispute over the state's Republican senator blocking military promotions continued.

"Alabama's restrictive reproductive care laws were not a factor in this decision. ...The most significant factor considered was operational readiness during a critical time in this dynamic security environment," a White House official told Reuters.

The administration announced Monday that the Space Force headquarters would remain in Colorado Springs instead of relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, a spot favored by former Republican President Donald Trump and known as "Rocket City" for its role in developing space rockets.

Biden's decision comes as Alabama's Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville is blocking hundreds of U.S. military appointments to protest the Pentagon's policy reimbursing costs for service members who travel to get an abortion. The blocks are preventing enlisted military from retiring, disrupting relocations and school schedules and undermining the military, the White House and Biden say.

The Pentagon said the Space Command decision by Biden, a Democrat, would ensure "peak readiness" of the command during a critical period.

Tuberville accused Biden of prioritizing a political feud over the needs of the military.

"This decision...looks like blatant patronage politics, and it sets a dangerous precedent that military bases are now to be used as rewards for political supporters rather than for our security," Tuberville said in a statement on Monday after the announcement.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Alabama-s-abortion-laws-not-behind-Space-Command-decision-White-House--44483101/

UBS to Dispose of Riskiest Credit Suisse Loans to Asian Clients

 UBS (UBS) is planning to dispose billions of dollars in loans to Credit Suisse's (CS) clients in the Asia-Pacific region as the Swiss lender works to reduce risks from the defunct lender.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/UBS-GROUP-AG-19156942/news/UBS-to-Dispose-of-Riskiest-Credit-Suisse-Loans-to-Asian-Clients-44477913/

BlackRock, MSCI face probe for allegedly facilitating China investments

 Asset manager BlackRock and index provider MSCI are being investigated by a congressional committee for allegedly facilitating China investments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing letters.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BLACKROCK-INC-11862/news/BlackRock-MSCI-face-probe-for-allegedly-facilitating-China-investments-WSJ-44478676/

Rand Paul Says He Has Fauci "Dead To Rights"

 by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Senator Rand Paul discussed his criminal referral of Anthony Fauci to the Department of Justice in an interview Tuesday, declaring that “we have him dead to rights.”

As we highlighted yesterday, Paul forwarded copies of 2020 email exchanges that show Fauci confirming that he knew “scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments.”

“This directly contradicts everything he said in committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it’s absolutely a lie. That’s why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ,” Paul tweeted.

In a Fox & Friends interview Monday, Paul urged “There’s probably never been a government official caught more red-handed, lying to us,” adding “He has proved the lie in his own words.”

The Senator continued, “at first he kind of acted like ‘Oh we don’t have anything to do with the research over there, we don’t fund the research in Wuhan, so we found the actual scientific papers, we found the grant number proving it came from his agency. And then he said, ‘Oh well, we’re funding it, but it’s not gain-of-function. My experts up and down have looked at this and it’s not gain-of-function.’”

“We have contemporaneous documents, documents from February of 2020 in the height of the beginning of the pandemic, where he is saying privately ‘We’re suspicious that this virus could have come from the lab because they’re doing gain-of-function research.’” Paul added.

The Senator further asserted that Fauci “describes the projects, that I had described to him a year later, which he said ‘Oh, there’s nothing to see here.’ We have in his own words admitting it was gain of function, admitting they funded it and admitting it gave them suspicion to the possibility this pandemic came from the lab.”

Paul noted that lying to Congress carries a five year prison sentence, but doubts anything will come of it.

“We have him dead to rights, the problem is this: we have Merrick Garland who I think is a pure-rank partisan. I don’t think he’ll ever be prosecuted,” Paul stated, adding “We also have a Democrat Party that is happy to have paid him more than the president, more than any president makes and he actually got a million dollars from a private foundation while he was still a public servant.”

“Everything about this is rotten to the core and if we don’t bring him to justice we’ll never get the control we need on this type of research to try and prevent it from happening again,” Paul further warned.

Watch:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-rand-paul-says-he-has-fauci-dead-rights

US FDA approval and panel tracker: July 2023

 Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi received full approval to treat Alzheimer’s disease last month. That was expected; what was not was that the label came with a boxed warning over Aria, a brain swelling disorder, with recommendation for ApoE4 genetic testing to assess Aria risk. Leqembi’s launch is under way with Biogen highlighting on its quarterly call that it has Medicaid coverage in 48 states so far. Elsewhere good news finally came for Verrica’s Ycanth after three previous complete response letters. This is the first FDA-approved therapy to treat molluscum contagiosum, a viral condition that creates a localised skin infection. There was also good news for Astrazeneca and Sanofi’s Beyfortus, an antibody to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in young children. Sanofi noted on its second-quarter call that it is confident of a broad recommendation at the ACIP meeting on 3 August, and will price the therapy like a premium vaccine. Hot on its heels is Pfizer’s Abrysvo, due a Pdufa decision as a maternal RSV vaccine later this month.

Notable first-time US approval decisions in July 2023
Project	Company	Indication(s)	2028e SBI ($m)	Outcome
Beyfortus (nirsevimab)	Astrazeneca/Sanofi/Sobi	Prevention of RSV lower respiratory tract disease in neonates and infants born during or entering their first RSV season, and in children up to 2 years old who remain vulnerable to severe disease through their second season	1,727	Approved
Qdenga (TAK-003)	Takeda	Dengue vaccine (4-60 years)	922	BLA withdrawn (data collection issues)
Xdemvy (TP-03)	Tarsus	Demodex blepharitis	497	Approved
Ycanth (VP-102)	Verrica	Molluscum contagiosum in patients 2 years and older	212	Approved
Cyfendus (AV7909)	Emergent Biosolutions	Two-dose anthrax vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis use	212	Approved
Lymphir (denileukin diftitox, I/Ontak, E7777)	Citius Pharmaceuticals	Cutaneous persistent or recurrent T-cell lymphoma	195	CRL
Quizartinib (Vanflyta) + standard cytarabine and anthracycline induction	Daiichi Sankyo	Newly diagnosed FLT3-ITD­ +ve AML	116	Approved
Risvan (Doria/ risperidone ISM)	Laboratorios Farmacéuticos ROVI	Schizophrenia	-	CRL
Balfaxar (Octaplex)	Octapharma	Warfarin reversal in urgent surgery and invasive procedures	-	Approved
Sources: Evaluate Pharma & company releases.

 

Supplementary and other notable approval decisions in July 2023
Product	Company	Indication (clinical trial)	Outcome
Leqembi	Eisai/Biogen	Alzheimer's disease - full approval	Approved
Leqvio	Novartis	Adults with high LDL-C and who are at increased risk of heart disease	Approved
Veklury	Gilead	Covid-19 patients with severe renal impairment, including those on dialysis (Redpine)	Approved
Ervebo	Merck	Prevention of Ebola virus disease caused by Zaire ebolavirus in individuals 1-17 years of age	Approved
Jemperli + chemo	Anaptysbio/GSK	Adult patients with mismatch repair deficient/microsatellite instability-high primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer (part 1 of Ruby)	Approved (~ 2 months early)
Sources: Evaluate Pharma & company releases. https://www.evaluate.com/vantage/articles/insights/nme-approvals-snippets/us-fda-approval-and-panel-tracker-july-2023