An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York City on Dec. 11, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
My top 10 things to watch Wednesday, Dec. 4
1. Club name Eli Lilly crushes Novo Nordisk in the first head-to-head trial comparing their obesity drugs. Club name Lilly’s Zepbound generated weight loss of 20% on average after 72 weeks versus about 14% for Novo’s Wegovy. Is this the end of Novo as an alternative? I don’t believe Lilly has anywhere near the capacity it now needs to meet the demand (yet).
2. With its strong earnings report Tuesday night, Salesforce has officially unleashed Agentforce, its new AI tools platform, and the concept of a digital workforce as a way to do sales. CEO Marc Benioff again criticized Microsoft‘s competing Copilot offering, suggesting it’s irrelevant. Can’t even quantify the size of the opportunity. In response to the quarter, we raised our price target on the longtime Club holding.
3. Marvell Technology shares are up more than 13% on earnings. The semiconductor firm is a juggernaut working in the data center with Jensen Huang’s Nvidia to provide optical connectivity tech, but also with Amazon Web Services on its custom silicon — and apparently Alphabet‘s Google and Microsoft, too. But the main partner is Nvidia, and Marvell said it’s tracking way ahead of its AI revenue forecasts provided at an April analyst meeting. We own Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft for the Club.
4. Shares of Pure Storage are surging over 20% on blowout quarterly results and guidance, while also announcing a contract with an unnamed “top four” AI hyperscaler. No doubt the provider of flash data storage will see an acceleration of business as a result. Piper Sandler upgraded the stock.
5. Add Okta to the blowout earnings pile. The identity platform provider beat estimates with quarterly earnings and revenue. It also raised guidance, helping the stock soar roughly 13%. I’m talking to Okta’s CEO on “Mad Money” later. Meanwhile, cloud security firm Zscaler fell Tuesday on disappointing numbers.
6. General Motors expects a more than $5 billion impact from restructuring its joint venture in China. It’s writing down the value of the JV by between $2.6 billion and $2.9 billion, while the remainder is tied to other costs such as plant closures. China has been backing its domestic manufacturers in recent years, hurting the likes of GM.
7. Palantir announced late Tuesday that it was granted authorization to offer cloud and the rest of its products across the federal government. The stock, already up more than 300% year to date, gained nearly 1% early Wednesday after closing nearly 7% higher in the prior session.
8. What’s behind the shortfall in outlook at Foot Locker heading into the holiday shopping season? CEO Mary Dillon told CNBC that the company sees “softness” at Nike. Foot Locker’s reported quarter missed. The stock dropped more than 18% on the news.
9. Goldman Sachs sees mixed demand at Tesla. The analysts said EV delivery growth goals for 2024 are running short, but they expect the automaker to use incentives meet volume targets. Tesla needs to Model Y inventories ahead of new edition, the Goldman note said.
10. Dollar Tree reported quarterly beats on earnings and revenue. Sales at the company’s namesake chain and Family Dollar rose 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively. Dollar Tree CFO agreed to step down. The company noted strategic alternatives for Family Dollar are still on track.
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