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Merck reported $640 million in sales for its Covid-19 drug, Lagevrio, in Q3 earnings, blowing past analyst expectations of $140.8 million. Covid drug sales have dropped for most big pharma companies this year, with Pfizer lowering its total expected 2023 earnings by about $9 billion due mostly to declining Paxlovid sales. Merck attributed the boost to increasing demand for Lagevrio in Japan.

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California’s largest health system agreed to a $200 million settlement on October 12th following an investigation that found the system has failed to provide timely behavioral health appointments for patients and has canceled more than 100,000 appointments.

Kaiser Permanente, which also runs a health plan, will “undertake a systemic overhaul” of its behavioral health services, Mary Watanabe, director of the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), the regulatory body that oversees managed care plans in California, said in a statement. The DMHC began investigating Kaiser in May 2022 after the Oakland-based health system saw a 20% increase in behavioral health patient complaints in 2021, the DMHC said in a statement.

CITE: https://www.r2library.com/Resource

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President President Biden spoke Tuesday afternoon on what the White House has called a crackdown on “junk fees” in retirement planning. Such fees chip away at account balances over time, leading to lifetime savings that are up to 20% less than if advisors were held to the highest standards, according to a White House statement.

Under current regulations, advisors who provide advice to workers rolling their 401(k) or related plan into an individual retirement account are generally not considered a fiduciary—that is, a professional who must put clients’ interests ahead of their own. This means that an advisor could steer an investor into, say, an annuity that pays the advisor a big commission, even if it’s not the best option for the investor. In some cases, commission costs and other fees are baked into the product, as opposed to paid outright, and investors don’t realize that they are silently eating into returns over time.

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The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday as it continues to track inflation and the health of the economy. The central bank voted unanimously to leave its primary interest rate in the range of 5.25% to 5.50%. U.S. interest rates are the highest they’ve been in 23 years. That means interest rates on loans such as mortgages have gone up sharply, and so have payments on Treasury bonds and interest-bearing accounts.

Here is where the major benchmarks ended:

• The S&P 500 Index was up 44.06 points (1.1%) at 4,237.86; the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was up 221.71 points (0.7%) at 33,274.58; the NASDAQ Composite was up 210.23 points (1.6%) at 13,061.47.
• The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) was down about 11 basis points at 4.761%.
• CBOE’s Volatility Index (VIX) was down 1.30 at 16.84.

In addition to technology, communication services and utilities were among the strongest sectors Wednesday. Energy shares were under pressure as crude oil futures extended this week’s slump and ended at a two-month low. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) tumbled from an earlier rally to a one-month high, potentially reflecting expectations that domestic interest rates may be near a peak.

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