US agency questions AstraZeneca vaccine, GameStop earnings on tap

You could be forgiven if you suffer value fatigue; it can be a long slog, all this ‘vaccine optimism’ and ‘reopening hopes’, for the beleaguered value investor. You’d also be forgiven for Covid fatigue; I think we have all done more than our bit to ‘protect the NHS’ over the last 12 months. And on this sorry topic there’s another headache this morning for AstraZeneca bosses as a US health agency questioned the Oxford vaccine with the ink barely dry on the company’s press release announcing the very high safety and efficacy of the jab in long-awaited US phase 3 trials. Shares fell 1% in early trade.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said late Monday it was notified about concerns about initial data from the trials. The Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) ‘expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data’. I may have left the toilet seat up, I may not have. It didn’t say much else, except urging AstraZeneca to work with the DSMB to ‘review the efficacy data and ensure the most accurate, up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible’. More doubts won’t do the vaccine any favour – another PR problem that will cost lives. This will not do any favours for getting this shot into people’s arms – it’s not just the rollout by government, it’s people’s willingness to get it. And on that note Europe sits on large stockpiles of the Astra vaccine as countries cannot get the jab into arms.

European shares are lower this morning after a muted Asian session with the major bourses off about half a percent in the opening minutes. Travel & leisure stocks were near the bottom of the Stoxx 600 as the UK extended a foreign holiday ban until the end of June. IAG, TUI and Carnival fell about 3-4%. WH Smith – dependent on travel earnings more than the high street these days – also declined more than 3%. US markets closed higher on Monday, led by the Nasdaq gaining 1.2% and the S&P 500 up 0.7%. Futures point to a weaker open later. Powell and Yellen are in front of the House Financial Services Committee to talk about stimulus. FOMC member Lael Brainard also talks later today.

MOAR: Joe Biden’s team is looking a $3 trillion plan for the US economy that will feature massive investment in infrastructure, green energy and education, as well as tax hikes. This fits in with his manifesto pledge, but I thought he may have taken longer to get to this point given the $1.9tn stimulus package for Covid relief has just been launched. This package would be another enormous injection of stimulus to the economy.

Tesla rose 2%, but at one point traded about 10% higher, after a bullish report from ARK Invest. Tesla is a 10% holding in the Innovation ETF (ARKK). ARK says Tesla will reach $3000 by 2025. That is not even the bull cash ($4,000), whilst the ‘bear’ case implies a mere doubling or more to $1,500. ARK uses a Monte Carlo simulation to get there, which is aptly named since it is basically a case of spinning the wheel and see what number you land on. Actually it’s more like keep spinning until you get the number you want. Investing should not be a game of roulette. You can read the full report here. If you like this I have a bridge to sell you.

GameStop reports earnings tonight. Analysts expect revenues to rise 2% year-on-year to $2.2bn, with earnings per share seen up 15% at $1.46. Dry earnings figures don’t really do it justice; these are the first earnings since the Reddit-inspired trading frenzy sent the stock skywards, sank Melvin Capital, put RobinHood in the dock and made Roaring Kitty famous well beyond the /wallstreetbets crowd. No one really cares about these earnings; they do care about what resource will be required for turning GameStop into the ‘Amazon of gaming’ – the more the board seeks to raise the better in many ways. Traders will be wanting to hear about any plans for capital raising, and more about the new ecommerce strategy.

Meanwhile, the FT reports WeWork announced losses of $3.2bn last year as it pitched for a SPAC listing and $1bn investment. Get this though: WeWork’s losses narrowed from $3.5bn burnt in 2019 because it slashed capex to the bone because of the pandemic. Investors who might have got swept up in a WeWork IPO in 2019 will be grateful the listing got pulled. Now SPACs mean it’s even easier to go public and I’m sure they will find some willing backers for this serviced office provider tech platform. Barge pole springs to mind.

Bitcoin is lower, testing the bottom of the recent range around the 23.6% retracement level after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell warned that the asset is not a good store of value. “They’re highly volatile and therefore not really useful stores of value and they’re not backed by anything,” Powell said at a digital banking panel. “It’s more a speculative asset that’s essentially a substitute for gold rather than for the dollar.” ‘More a substitute for gold’ supports a certain bullish thesis we’ve been noting for some time, albeit the only reason you own Bitcoin is in the hope it will rise in value.

Gold is trading sideways as yields are not doing an awful lot so far this week.