Astrazeneca Share News (AZN)

* Major averages end higher; Nasdaq out front
* All major S&P sectors green, real estate leads
* Gold up; crude, dollar dip; U.S. 10-yr yield ~0.68%

Sept 14 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of U.S.
equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters and
anchored today by Chuck Mikolajczak. Reach him on Messenger to
share your thoughts on market moves:
charles.mikolajczak.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net


MERGER MONDAY, VACCINE HOPES LIFT STOCKS (1605 EDT/2005 GMT)
U.S. stocks climbed on Monday, with each of the major
averages posting a gain of more than 1%, buoyed by a flurry of
merger deals and signs of progress for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Nvidia closed 5.8% higher after reaching a deal to
buy UK-based chip designer Arm from Japan's SoftBank Group Corp
for up to $40 billion, which helped lift other chip
names and boosted the PHLX Semiconductor index by 2.1%.

Tech shares also got a lift as Oracle Corp
climbed 4.3% in the wake of its partnership agreement
with China's ByteDance to keep TikTok in operation in the U.S.

On the vaccine front, Pfizer Inc gained 2.6% and
U.S.-listed shares of Germany's BioNTech rose
3.6% after proposing an expansion to the FDA for their Phase 3
trial to about 44,000 participants.
AstraZeneca's U.S.-listed shares advanced
0.5% after the drugmaker resumed clinical trials of its vaccine
in Britain.
Adding to the positive tone, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin on Monday said there still could be a deal with Congress
for more federal coronavirus aid, a day after U.S. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi also voiced optimism.
The focus will also shift towards the policy announcement
from the Fed on Wednesday after it concludes a two-day meeting,
with the central bank widely expected to remain dovish.
Below is your closing market snapshot:




(Chuck Mikolajczak)
*****

NVIDIA'S ARM DEAL LIFTS U.S. CHIP STOCKS (1345 EDT/1745 GMT)
U.S. chip stocks rallied on Monday, with Nvidia
surging as much as 9.5% after news it is buying Arm Holdings
from SoftBank in a $40 billion deal that is likely to shake up
the global semiconductor industry.
The Philadelphia SE chip index was last up 1.8%, with
Xilinx, KLA Corp and Applied Materials
up over 2% each.
Micron Technology jumped over 6%, lifted by an
upgrade by Goldman Sachs to "buy" from "neutral", with analyst
Toshiya Hari predicting weakness in memory prices would be
short-lived.
Arm's chip architecture and designs are licensed across the
electronics industry, with Apple, Samsung Electronics
Huawei and Qualcomm among its major
customers. Chipmakers have long viewed Arm as a neutral player
in the chip industry, licensing intellectual property to
semiconductor makers but not making or selling its own chips.
Nvidia says Arm will remain neutral and add some of its own
graphics IP to Arm's offerings, but the prospect of having Arm
owned by Nvidia is likely to ruffle the feathers of Nvidia's
competitors.
The chip index's jump on Monday was also supported by a
broad Wall Street rally driven by signs of progress in
developing a COVID-19 vaccine. The chip index is now up about
18% year to date, compared to the S&P 500's 5% rise.

(Noel Randewich)
*****

WHAT CRISIS? U.S. JUNK MARKET RECOVERS TO PRE-PANDEMIC
LEVELS (1254 EDT/1654 GMT)
In an ongoing hunt for yield, investors on Friday drove the
U.S. high-yield credit market to pre-pandemic levels.
Markit's North American High-Yield CDX index
rose in price, a bullish signal, to 106.519% on Friday, its
highest since Feb. 26. On Monday it was trading just under
Friday's highs.
Credit default swaps offer insurance on corporate bond
holdings - a way to hedge credit risk. The index allows
investors to take a position on a basket of 100 liquid credits
and is used as a proxy for the overall junk bond market. A
higher price on the index indicates a risk-on move, typically
correlated with a drop in concern about high-yield defaults.
But U.S. corporate defaults through the end of August were
at the highest since 2009, according to S&P Global.
"Historically, high yield spread levels have corresponded to
subsequent default rates, this time it appears to be different,"
said Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John
Hancock.
With the federal funds rate near zero, investors have sought
out higher-yielding opportunities in segments of the market with
greater credit risk. Since the Federal Reserve's intervention in
March, spreads have tightened, issuance has thrived and monthly
flows into U.S. high-yield funds were positive through August,
according to Lipper. Recent stock market volatility has hampered
flows somewhat, but Friday's move suggests that investor demand
for high yield has returned.
"Hard to say it's not being driven by the Fed as defaults
keep rising yet spreads keep tightening," said Miskin. "Solvency
risk is being obscured by liquidity."




(Kate Duguid)
*****

IPO FORECAST CALLS FOR SEPTEMBER "SNOW" FLURRY (1200
EDT/1600 GMT)
The IPO market as expected has rekindled post-Labor Day with
14 deals seeking to raise about $8 billion this week, led by
cloud storage firm Snowflake Inc.
Overall, this week's IPO lineup is expected to be the
biggest by deal count and proceeds since May 2019 when Uber
Technologies went public.
Sequoia-backed Snowflake, poised to become this year's
biggest U.S. IPO (and the largest software IPO ever), increased
its price range early Monday and now plans to raise about $3.08
billion by selling 28 million shares. In addition, Warren
Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and software bellwether
Salesforce.com will each buy $250 million of Snowflake's
stock in a separate private placement.
The IPO is slated to price Tuesday for the shares to debut
Wednesday on the NYSE with the symbol "SNOW".
This week's docket also includes 3 other software IPO
hopefuls from 3D software provider Unity Software (about $1
billion raise), U.S.-Israeli software provider
JFrog Ltd and cloud firm Sumo
Logic Inc.
Other notable offerings this week include telehealth company
AmWell, and Outset Medical
accelerated its IPO pricing by a day to Monday, suggesting the
portable dialysis systems maker's deal is in strong shape
.
Glancing ahead, gaming peripherals maker Corsair Gaming
and online prescription drug firm GoodRx on
Monday kicked off marketing for their respective IPOs, which are
on track to price next week.

(Lance Tupper)
*****



DAMN THE TECH TORPEDOES, FULL SPEED AHEAD - GOLDMAN
REAFFIRMS S&P TARGETS (1055 EDT/1455 GMT)
Despite last week's tech rout, "improving earnings prospects
and a declining risk premium" have convinced Goldman Sachs to
leave its 3,600 year-end target for the S&P 500 unchanged.
In a research note, which also reaffirmed its mid-year 2021
target of 3,800, the broker also points to increasing
probability of a COVID-19 vaccine gaining approval from the FDA
by the time 2020 reaches its conclusion.
Additionally, according to Goldman's monitor of business
activity normalization, measured on a scale where 1 represents
full lockdown and 10 indicates a fully-reopened economy, the
metric shifted last week from 4 to 5 after weeks of little
movement, writes David Kostin, the investment bank's chief U.S.
equity strategist.
While the broker's S&P 500 2021 EPS forecast is above
consensus at $170, Kostin sees an uneven recovery, saying that
"Information Technology and Health Care will both reach new
levels of profitability while Financials and Energy will
struggle."
The biggest risk to these targets remains the approaching
presidential election.
"Equity implied volatility shows market uncertainty is
high," Kostin writes. "Options are pricing a 3% S&P 500 move on
November 4 as well as the likelihood of an extended period of
uncertainty as mail-in votes are tallied."
Recent antitrust litigation and "record hedge fund crowding"
with respect to market-leading large-cap tech/tech-adjacent
companies like Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, Apple
Inc, Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc
, which together now represent 23% of S&P 500 market
cap, also represent potential downside risk, according to
Kostin.
Still, "the collective valuation of the market leaders is
appropriate given their superior long-and short-term growth
prospects and strong balance sheets," Kostin says.
The charts below, courtesy of Goldman Sachs, show top-down
EPS growth estimates by sector and rising P/E multiples for the
tech sector versus the broader market.

Tech stocks were very much back in favor in
morning trading, up more than 2% and handily outperforming the
other major S&P sectors.
(Stephen Culp)
*****

S&P 500: JUST HOW SOLID IS THIS 50-DAY FLOOR? (1003 EDT/1403
GMT)
After being repulsed by a resistance line from its 2018 high
the S&P 500 sold off nearly 8% in just 6 trading days.

However, so far, the rising 50-day moving average (DMA) is
providing support. (Click on chart below)
On Friday, the benchmark index dipped below this closely
watched intermediate-term moving average, but recovered, and
finished the session back over it. Indeed, since reclaiming the
50-DMA on April 24, the S&P 500 has yet to end a session below
it.
Meanwhile, with the recent weakness, daily momentum studies
have broken down. However, the RSI, for example, has yet to fall
into oversold territory.
Of note, both the S&P 500, and its RSI, are showing somewhat
similar action to what developed ahead of the February top. In
late January/early February, the SPX sold down to its rising
50-DMA, while the daily RSI bottomed just ahead of oversold
territory.
After a snapback to marginal new highs, the S&P 500 topped
amid an RSI divergence. Once the SPX broke the 50-DMA, it then
accelerated to the downside.
Therefore, if the SPX can continue to hold the 50-DMA on a
closing basis, which is now at about 3,326, and then close back
over the 20-DMA, which is now at about 3,428, there may be
potential to challenge both the 3,588.11 intraday high and the
resistance line (now around 3,600). A stunted RSI along with
such a rise, however, would then add to risk for another sharp
downside reversal.
Failing to reclaim the 20-DMA, and then closing below the
50-DMA, can add weight to the view that the September high marks
a significant top.



(Terence Gabriel)
*****

FUTURES POINT TO REBOUND AFTER TWO-WEEK DROP (0808 EST/1208
GMT)
U.S. stocks index futures were pointing to a strong open on
Monday, after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq suffered
their biggest two-week percentage drop since March, buoyed by a
round of merger deals and signs of progress on the coronavirus
vaccine front.
Pfizer announced with BioNTech SE, that
the two companies have proposed expanding their phase 3 COVID-19
trial to 44,000 patients to the U.S Food and Drug
Administration, with a successful study putting them on track to
supply 100 million doses by the end of 2020.
Pfizer shares were up about 2% before the opening bell well
U.S.-listed shares of BioNTech gained about 4%.
AstraZeneca shares traded in the U.S. edged up 0.6%
in premarket after the company resumed British clinical trials
of its COVID-19 vaccine.
On the M&A front, Oracle shares jumped nearly 7%
after the company reached a deal for the U.S. arm of TikTok from
ByteDance, although the deal was structured as a partnership
instead of an outright sale. Shares of Microsoft, which
has been competing for the company, slipped 0.5%.
Nvidia climbed more than 5% after reaching a deal
to buy UK-based chip designer Arm from Japan's Softbank Group
for as much as $40 billion.
Immunomedics surged more than 195% after the
company agreed to be acquired by Gilead Sciences, down
1.7%, in a move to bolster its cancer portfolio.
Below is your premarket snapshot:



(Chuck Mikolajczak)
*****




(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views
expressed are his own
Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed
are his own)