DAILY UPDATE: Hims & Hers, MSFT-AI, Neuralink, FDIC and New Market Highs

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Essays, Opinions and Curated News in Health Economics, Investing, Business, Management and Financial Planning for Physician Entrepreneurs and their Savvy Advisors and Consultants

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Microsoft unveiled new PCs with AI-powered features.

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Hims & Hers stock soared as much as 38% on the news that it’ll provide GLP-1 injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic or Wegovy for just $199/month—an 85% discount compared to Wegovy’s ~$1,350 monthly price tag (without insurance).

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FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg will resign after an investigation found widespread sexual harassment at the agency. But he won’t step down until a successor is named.

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The FDA granted Elon Musk’s neurotech company Neuralink, approval to place its brain chip into a second human test subject using a new method designed to correct issues that arose after its inaugural insertion in January, per the Wall Street Journal.

And, Optum Rx is shaking up its pharmacy model. The business says it will make drug costs more predictable and transparent for clients.

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  • All three indexes ended the day higher after Fed Governor Christopher Waller stopped by CNBC and mentioned he doesn’t think raising interest rates is in the cards, even if the Fed is waiting for more data before making cuts. The NASDAQ continued to hit new all-time highs today as investors place their bets before Nvidia’s earnings announcement tomorrow afternoon, and the S&P 500 hit yet another record.
  • Copper continued to rise as the market comes to terms with the metal’s importance, while oil fell on the news that the Biden administration will release 1 million barrels of gasoline this summer from the Northeast reserve. Meanwhile, ethereum continued to climb on the news that a new ETF may be joining the fray.

Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • The S&P 500 index rose 13.28 points (0.3%) to 5,321.41; the Dow Jones Industrial Average® ($DJI) gained 66.22 points (0.2%) to 39,872.99; the NASDAQ Composite advanced 37.75 points (0.2%) to 16,832.62.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) lost more than 2 basis points to 4.414%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) fell 0.29 to 11.86.

Banking and consumer staples were among the market’s strongest performers Tuesday, while utility shares extended a sharp upswing over the past month. The Dow Jones Utility Average® ($DJU) added 0.5% and closed at a 12-month high. Transportation companies were among the weakest performers.

In other markets, Gold (/GC) futures slipped from Monday’s record high above $2,454 per ounce, while Silver (/SI) futures ended near a 12-year high around $32.21. Gold futures are still up 17% this year due to several factors, including reports of China’s central bank buying actual gold as well as escalating conflict in the Middle East. Gold is viewed by some as a safe-haven asset during periods of heightened geopolitical tension.

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DAILY UPDATE: Tesla Lay Offs, Mammograms, Physician Pay, UnitedHealth and Tele-Health as Stock Markets Close Mixed

MEDICAL EXECUTIVE-POST TODAY’S NEWSLETTER BRIEFING

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Essays, Opinions and Curated News in Health Economics, Investing, Business, Management and Financial Planning for Physician Entrepreneurs and their Savvy Advisors and Consultants

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Stat: 10%. That’s the percentage of Tesla employees that will be impacted by its global workforce reduction. Elon Musk sent an email to employees on Monday informing them of the layoffs, which he said were made to “reduce costs and increase productivity,” according to the WSJ. The move comes as the electric vehicle maker deals with a wider slowdown in EV sales. (the Wall Street Journal)

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UnitedHealth Group, reeling from the Change cyberattack, recorded a loss of $1.4 billion in the first quarter. Still, its EPS exceeded expectations and the stock is trading up.


The Florida Medicaid market is a big prize for insurers. Just three plans earned statewide contracts, starting in October.


And … physicians made steady pay gains last year, but increases were undercut by inflation rates. See how other specialties fared, according to a report from Medscape.

The social determinants of health can impact a woman’s chance of being up to date with her mammogram, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Women are less likely to get a mammogram if they feel socially isolated, have lost a job or don’t have reliable transportation.


And…A major House subcommittee is considering whether to issue another short-term extension on telehealth flexibilities as they continue to evaluate cost and quality issues or to enact permanent changes to virtual care reimbursement.  The American Telemedicine Association is pushing Congress to make permanent the Medicare telehealth flexibilities implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • The S&P 500® index (SPX) declined 10.41 points (0.2%) to 5,051.41, its lowest close in almost two months; the Dow Jones Industrial Average® ($DJI) advanced 63.86 points (0.2%) to 37,798.97; the NASDAQ Composite® ($COMP) eased 19.77 points (0.1%) to 15,865.25.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield gained almost 4 basis points to 4.667%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) fell 0.83 to 18.40.

Scaled-back expectations for Fed rate cuts continued to burden interest-rate-sensitive sectors, such as banks and utilities. The KBW Regional Bank Index (KRX) lost 1.4% and ended near a five-month low. The small-cap Russell 2000® Index (RUT) dropped 0.4% and ended at a two-month low.

In other markets, the U.S. dollar index (DXY) strengthened for the fifth consecutive trading day and hit its highest level since late October, reflecting expectations rates will stay elevated. 

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DAILY UPDATE: Stock Markets Surge

By Staff Reporters

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Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • Markets: Stocks pulled it out for a Friday win after the government dropped encouraging economic data. But all three major indexes were still down for the week, with the Dow enduring its worst of 2024.
  • Stock spotlight: Tesla took a wild ride, plunging after Reuters reported it had scrapped plans to produce its long-awaited Model 2 affordable EV only to regain some ground after Elon Musk denied it. The company then jumped after hours because Musk said it’ll debut a robotaxi on August 8.
  • The S&P 500 index gained 57.13 points (1.1%) to 5,204.34, down 1.0% for the week; the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 307.06 points (0.8%) to 38,904.04, down 2.3% for the week; the NASDAQ Composite® ($COMP) rose 199.44 points (1.2%) to 16,248.52, down 0.8% for the week.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) rose more than 8 basis points to 4.392%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) fell 0.32 to 16.03.

Meta Platforms (META) and Netflix (NFLX), two members of the “Magnificent Seven” mega-cap group, both jumped around 3% Friday, helping lift the S&P 500 Communication Services Index ($SP500#50) 1.6% to lead top-performing sectors. Meta shares closed at a record above $527, up 49% for the year. 

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DAILY UPDATE: Tesla and DJT Stock Down

By Staff Reporters

HAPPY EASTER

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Tesla had a rough quarter

The company’s stock was the worst performing in the S&P 500 in Q1, dropping 29%, amid fierce competition from Chinese electric carmakers, slowdowns from Red Sea shipping routes, arson at its German factory, Nordic labor battles, and controversies surrounding CEO Elon Musk.

Now, investors are warily watching to see what delivery numbers Tesla reports. But one group did make lots of money off the company as it lost over $230 billion in value last quarter: short sellers.

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Donald Trump’s namesake social media company burst out of the gate on its first day of trading Tuesday, opening at $70.90 and soaring as high as $79.38 as Trump fans and opportunistic traders bought up shares. But the price faded late in the session and has bounced along at lower levels ever since, ending Thursday down $4.26 at $61.96 on the NASDAQ. The stock exchange was closed Friday in observance of Good Friday.   

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Elon Musk and Mike Burry MD Speak Out & About Consumer Debt

WARNING – WARNING

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA CMP

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Echoing Elon Musk and my colleague medical Michael Burry MD, an economist has just warned about American consumers’ debt woes.

Echoing the likes of Tesla’s Elon Musk and “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry, a veteran economist has warned that American households have racked up historic amounts of debt — and the economy will pay the price.

“Consumers are just waking up to the fact that they’re financing their spending by running up their credit cards, and that the interest on those credit cards is over the top, out of control, and off the hook right now,” Carl Weinberg told CNBC. Record credit-card debt threatens to spark a consumer-spending slowdown soon, Carl Weinberg said.

“That’s going to lead to a retrenchment in consumer spending as we get into the new year” the chief economist at High Frequency Economics said. Weinberg expects the US economy to cool but not slide into recession, and he sees inflation fading.

And Burry contributed to our 800 page textbook on investing for physicians.

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PODCAST: The Elon Musk Algorithm Applied to Healthcare

By Eric Bricker MD

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Citigroup, Moderna and A.I. Referee

By Staff Reporters

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Citigroup announced a major reorganization aimed at eliminating unnecessary management layers. It will involve layoffs, but the bank didn’t say how many.

Bank Types: https://marcinkoassociates.com/bank-types/

One day after the CDC recommended that everyone above six months old get the new Covid booster, Moderna stock shot up. But it was mostly because the company showed it’s got a future beyond the virus with encouraging flu-shot trial results.

Elon Musk called for a regulator to ensure that AI development proceeds safely following a closed-door meeting with US lawmakers that also included Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg—which was probably an awkward run-in for Musk.

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Stocks, Musk, Goldman Sachs and Intel

By Staff Reporters

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  • Stocks mostly held steady yesterday as everyone waits for April’s inflation data to drop tomorrow. Regional banks saw some movement as PacWest cut its dividend, then teetered up and down throughout the day. But Six Flags theme park operator shot straight up after reporting record revenue for the last quarter thanks to higher ticket prices.
  • Elon Musk warned that Twitter follower counts may drop as the platform removes inactive accounts.
  • Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $215 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit accusing the investment bank of underpaying women. Elon Musk warned that Twitter follower counts may drop as the platform removes inactive accounts.
  • Intel continues to rattle the tech industry by confirming that it plans to cut its workforce to reduce costs. The company declined to share how many workers would be affected but said the layoffs would take place across the company.

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NEUROLINK: Brain Chips Rejected by the FDA?

By Staff Reporters

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The FDA has reportedly rejected an application from Neuralink.

Recall, Neuralink is Elon Musk’s medical device company to test its brain implants in humans.

LINK: https://neuralink.com/

Neuralink Corporation is an American neurotechnology company that develops implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) based in Fremont, California. Founded by Elon Musk and a founding team of seven scientists and engineers, Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.

Since its founding, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities. By July 2019, it had received $158 million in funding (of which $100 million was from Musk) and was employing a staff of 90 employees. At that time, Neuralink announced that it was working on a “sewing machine-like” device capable of implanting very thin (4 to 6 μm in width) threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that read information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes. They had anticipated starting experiments with humans in 2020, but have since moved that projection to 2023.

Several neuroscientists and publications, including the MIT Technology Review, have been critical of claims made by Musk about Neuralink, calling some of the technological promises “highly speculative”. In March 2023, Reuters reported that the Food and Drug Administration rejected a 2022 application for human trials.

The agency had several concerns, including the risk of tiny wires in the chip shifting to other areas of the brain.

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Twitter’s New Job Cuts and other Retailer Earnings

By Staff Reporters

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Twitter cuts more jobs: Just this past weekend, CEO Elon Musk laid off at least 200 workers from the company, which was about 10% of the ~2,000 employees still left at Twitter. When Musk bought the company last fall, there were roughly 7,500 people working there. Product Manager Esther Crawford was one of those let go—she had been heading up the Twitter Blue verification subscription service

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Other retailers in the spotlight: This week’s slate of earnings is all about retail. Target, Dollar Tree, Macy’s, Kroger, and others will give us an update on American consumer health in this period of ripping inflation.

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DAILY UPDATE: Elon Musk Wins but SPACS Do Not

By Staff Reporters

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A judge just ruled that a group of laid-off Twitter employees suing the business over their severance compensation, have to pursue their claims individually rather than as part of a class action, according to a Bloomberg report. About 500 of the roughly 3,700 Twitter employees Elon Musk laid off since taking control of the company last year have already filed individual arbitration claims, according to Shannon Liss-Riordan, the lawyer who filed those claims on the workers’ behalf.

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SPAC SEEKING SPAC: Money-losing companies that recently went public via SPAC are combining with other SPACs to secure more funding and stay afloat. The ultimate goal is one giant SPAC?

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“Pity” the Poor Billionaires in 2022

NO SANTA CLAUSE RALLY THIS YEAR!

By Staff Reporters

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth has shrunk by an astounding $140 billion, slashing his wealth to $130 billion as of 2022, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The sharp decline reflects the roughly 70% drop in Tesla stock this year, driven by investors swapping technology stocks for safer assets, worrying that running Twitter is a costly distraction for Musk, and fearing a US economic downturn and overseas headwinds will hit the automaker’s growth.

Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ wealth has fallen by $86 billion, while Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have seen their fortunes shrink by a combined $91 billion. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates’ net worth has also tumbled by $29 billion, while former CEO Steve Ballmer has taken a $21 billion hit.

Similarly, Oracle cofounder and Tesla investor Larry Ellison has suffered a $17 billion blow to his fortune, while Warren Buffett’s wealth has only dropped by $3 billion. The eight Americans, along with LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, Adani Group’s Gautam Adani, and Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, hold the top 11 spots in Bloomberg’s global wealth rankings.

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On Elon Musk’s Twitter Purchase

A Guest Column by Ryan Bernier

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What the Skeptics and Naysayers Miss about Elon Musk’s Twitter Purchase

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I first Met Richard Helppie when I was in business school. He was the CEO of Superior Consultant at the time and very gracious to me with with his advice. Today he is a respected philanthropist and publisher of The Common Bridge. -David E. Marcinko

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ELON MUSK’S TWITTER FOR DOCTORS: Same, Change, Grow or Die?

By Staff Reporters

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NEWS FLASH!

Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet, is the CEO of the world’s most valuable automaker TESLA, heads up a $125 billion aerospace giant, and as of yesterday, is the owner of a social media company Twitter.

According to multiple reports, Musk closed the $44 billion deal last night, less than 24 hours before today’s 5pm ET deadline. He began his reign as “Chief Twit” by firing at least four executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal (who was reportedly escorted out of Twitter’s SF headquarters). Later today, Musk is expected to address anxious employees, who might be worried they’ll face the same fate as their former leader. Historically:

  • Musk acquired a large stake in Twitter and later signed a deal to buy all of it.
  • Then he tried to back out, citing bot issues, but Twitter sued him to enforce the agreement.
  • Musk blinked weeks ahead of a trial, and said he would buy Twitter.

Now What?

So begins Musk’s attempt to, in his words, “help humanity” by trying to turn Twitter into a “common digital town square.”

We know that Musk has ultra-ambitious goals for the company: 5x Twitter’s revenue by 2028, supercharge the subscriptions business, and turn Twitter into a super app called “X.” But murkier is the path he intends to take to get there, and he’s already sending mixed signals about his intentions. And what about doctors and the healthcare industrial complex? Will it remain the same or change?

History

Back in early 2014 the first list of the “Top 100 Twitter Accounts For Healthcare Professionals To Follow” was born. Then, the biggest social media-related question to hurdle wasn’t, “Who should I be following on social media?” but rather, “Should I even be on social media at all?”

Many years later, it’s safe to say that social media has firmly established itself in the healthcare industry. By finding healthcare Twitter accounts that are related to your specialty, you can have access to the best information and always remain within the loop.

Top 100 Healthcare Twitter Accounts T...

But, with the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter, the medicine and healthcare accounts available may change, remain static or grow, and finding the most valuable medical accounts to follow has become more challenging than ever.

Today

Today, the question truly is, “Who should I be following?” Thankfully, you have been covered since 2020.

HERE: https://emedcert.com/blog/top-healthcare-twitter-accounts-to-follow

Now, colleagues should follow the rest of the Musk story in 2022 and beyond.

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ELON MUSK: Thinks Twitter Can Run at 25% Workforce

By Staff Reporters

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According to the Washington Post, Elon Musk told potential investors for his Twitter purchase that he would thin the company’s 7,500-person workforce by 75%, leaving less than 2,000 employees to protect against security threats and solve the bot problem.

But even if the deal didn’t go through, Twitter was probably headed for layoffs. Current management said they needed to cut payroll by nearly $800 million by the end of 2023. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is expected to close by next week.

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ELON MUSK: On Tesla Shares

By Staff Reporters

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Elon Musk gets good news and bad news

Tesla just reported its highest ever quarterly revenue of $21.5 billion. But that still fell short of analyst expectations, so shares fell about 5% after the announcement.

And, although Tesla stock has declined around 37% since the beginning of the year, Musk remained optimistic, saying he can see a future where the company ends up “worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined.”

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MUSK versus TWITTER

By Staff Reporters

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Quote: “Maybe Oprah would be interested in joining the Twitter board if my bid succeeds.”

Floating Oprah as a Twitter board member to CBS anchor Gayle King is just one of many juicy Elon Musk texts that were released yesterday ahead of the Musk v. Twitter trial.

Also included in the treasure trove: Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison pledging $1 billion to Musk’s take-private bid because “it would be lots of fun” and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey endorsing Musk’s attempted takeover because, “It’s too critical for humanity.”

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UPDATE: The NASDAQ, Elon Musk and Twitter

By Staff Reporters

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The NASDAQ composite booked its best day in more than a week after investors snapped up technology and communications shares on Elon Musk’s disclosure of a large stake in social media platform Twitter Inc. The NASDAQ, Dow industrials and S&P 500 all rose for a second straight trading day.

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What happened:

  • The NASDAQ Composite COMP, +1.90% finished up 271.05 points, or 1.9%, at 14,532.55. That’s the largest daily percentage gain since March 24, 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.30% added 103.61 points or 0.3%, closing at 34,921.88.
  • The S&P 500 SPX, +0.81% closed up 36.78 points, or 0.8%, at 4,582.64.

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