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- Apple’s AI could add $40 per share
- Ozempic study shows it can slow kidney disease
- GSK lands Zantac legal win
- Workday drops as lower headcounts hit forecasts
Apple’s AI could add $40 per share - analyst
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) is reinvigorating its investment appeal thanks to its latest AI announcements, and, as iPhone sales appear to be picking up again, that’s the view of stock market analysts at Wedbush.
The California-headquartered stockbroker has today lifted its price target for Apple, to $275 from $250 per share, and repeated a ‘Buy’ recommendation.
Wedbush eyes more stabile in iPhone demand, in Asia particularly, and it believes that newly discussed AI integrations will significantly enhance both Apple's services and hardware for an installed user base in excess of 2.2 billion devices.
AI integrations can add between $30 and $40 per share, according to Wedbush.
Wedbush reckons Apple can follow Microsoft in delivering an AI-centric developers conference in which it can showcase new developments.
“We believe AI technology being introduced into the Apple ecosystem will bring ample monetization opportunities on both the services as well as iPhone/hardware front,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said in a note.
The conference in June promises to “kick off a new frontier”, the analyst highlighted.
“Lets be clear we believe June 10 marks Apple's most important event in a decade for Cook & Co,” Ives added.
“Introducing AI to its all-important developer community and laying the foundation for bringing generative AI to the consumer starts with Apple in our view.”
“We also believe Apple will lay the foundation for an AI App Store as developers build consumer apps on the AI stack that Cook & Co will introduce at [the conference] and will lead to additional services growth over the coming years.”
Ozempic study shows it can slow kidney disease
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO)’s wight-loss ‘wonder drug’ has had another positive research breakthrough, with latest clinical data suggesting it also slows the progression of kidney disease and reduces the risk of death.
The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was undertaken with patients with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
The study found that patients taking Ozempic had a 24% lower risk of severe kidney events and death from cardiovascular or kidney causes compared to those on placebo.
It involved around 3,500 participants over approximately 3.5 years, and it also showed that Ozempic also reduced the risk of heart attack and other major cardiovascular events by 18%.
According to expert commentators, quoted in media reports, suggest that the findings support the expansion of Ozempic’s label to include treatment for diabetic kidney disease.
This latest reports adds to the weight of research into the GLP-1 weight loss drugs and the other impacts that they’ve been seen including reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular events.
The success of Ozempic and Wegovy has been the driving force behind Novo Nordisk’s soaring valuation.
Novo Nordisk shares are up 400% in recent years, and are up around 70% over the past twelve months. It is now Europe’s most valuable company at around $450 billion.
GSK lands Zantac legal win
GSK PLC (LSE:GSK, NYSE:GSK) secured a key victory in a high-stakes personal injury case in Illinois, United States, concerning its heartburn medication Zantac.
A jury found that Zantac was not responsible for the plaintiff’s colon cancer, leading to the judge to reject a claim for $640 million in damages.
"This outcome is consistent with the scientific consensus that there is no consistent or reliable evidence that ranitidine increases the risk of any cancer, supported by 16 epidemiological studies looking at human data regarding the use of ranitidine,” GSK said in a statement.
Angela Valadez, an 89-year-old resident of Illinois, had claimed that prolonged use of Zantac (ranitidine) caused her to develop colorectal cancer.
It was one of the first among tens of thousands of similar lawsuits filed against manufacturers of Zantac, including GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim.
“GSK will continue to vigorously defend itself against all other claims,” the company added.
Workday stock struggles as lower headcounts hit forecasts
Workday Inc (NASDAQ:WDAY) stock slumped on Friday, down 13%, on reduced full-year subscription revenue guidance.
The human resources software group now expects subscription revenue to be between $7.7 billion and $7.725 billion, a slight decrease from its prior forecast of $7.725 billion to $7.775 billion.
This revised guidance reflects an uptick in ‘sales scrutiny’ and, is the result of reduced headcount growth across its customer base.
Despite the lowered forecast, Workday described robust results for the first quarter of its new financial year.
Revenue increased by 18% year-over-year to $1.99 billion, exceeding Wall Street's expectations.
Workday's first-quarter profit stood at $107 million, or 40 cents per share, a significant improvement from the break-even results reported in the same period last year. Subscription revenue for the quarter reached $1.82 billion.
It added that earnings (adjusted) per share amounted to $1.74, which was better than the $1.57 pencilled in by analysts.
"Our first quarter performance was in line with our expectations across our key financial metrics," chief financial officer Zane Rowe said.
"We were pleased with our progress across key growth initiatives in Q1, which help build a foundation for long-term growth."