Stocks In News: HOOD, SPRO, NVAX
2:45 pm Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
Even as much of the market was in the red this morning, shares of Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) were a couple of points in the green. So, what’s going on exactly? According to a Bloomberg report, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is willing to consider allowing Robinhood to continue accepting payment for order flow or PFOF. This development is having a positive impact on HOOD stock because Robinhood’s business model depends heavily on PFOF. There’s no way to confirm or deny what’s in the Bloomberg report right now. However, if we take the rumor at face value, the SEC softening its stance toward PFOF would give Robinhood and its investors a much-needed shot in the arm.
Spero Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SPRO) stock is rocketing higher on Thursday after the company signed a licensing agreement with GSK (NYSE:GSK). This deal covers the rights to tebipenem HBr, which is an antibiotic asset in late-stage development by Spero Therapeutics. That has GSK agreeing to an upfront payment of $66 million for exclusive rights to the medicine. Adding to this, there are several milestone payments available to Spero Therapeutics. In total, this allows for up to an additional $225 million in payments from GSK. Investors will also note a low-single-digit to low-double-digit royalty agreement on sales of the asset.
Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) stock fell 6% on Sept. 21, and kept falling overnight, after a JP Morgan Chase analyst cut his price target from over $100/share down to just $27 with an “underperform” rating. Eric Joseph said the action came after he revised the bank’s outlook for Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, called Nuvaxovid. Shares trading at nearly $27.40 early on Sept. 21 were now trading at a little over $24 early on Sept. 22. Novavax’s market capitalization is now a little under $2 billion, and is down 90% on the year.
