Earnings Season is Here Again

Weight Loss Drugs: More Harm than Good?

George Yancopoulos, Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals [REGN], has raised concerns that popular weight loss drugs, known as glucagon-like peptide-1s (GLP-1s), could cause “more harm than good” due to rapid muscle loss associated with their use. Clinical studies suggest that patients on GLP-1s lose muscle mass far more quickly than those losing weight through diet or exercise, which could lead to long-term health issues, the Financial Times reported.

UK TV Networks Partner with Amazon

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have reached a deal with Amazon [AMZN] to integrate their new free streaming platform, Freely, onto Amazon’s smart TVs. This partnership represents a significant step for Everyone TV, the joint venture behind the platform, which offers British viewers access to live and on-demand TV without the need for a dish or aerial. Freely provides around 70,000 hours of content and will be available through Amazon’s Fire TV operating system.

Google Under Pressure

After years of predominance in the $300bn search advertising market, Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google is facing increasing competition from emerging platforms like ByteDance’s TikTok and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engines, according to Seeking Alpha. Perplexity AI, a search platform backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will start displaying ads alongside AI-generated answers later this month. Elsewhere, the Financial Times wondered if Google could be broken up off the back of a recent antitrust case.

Hedge Funds Pile into Healthcare

A recent decline in healthcare stocks has prompted hedge funds to significantly increase their positions in the sector, according to a report from Goldman Sachs, which noted healthcare was “among the most net bought sectors”, with long buys surpassing short sales by 2.3 to 1. According to Seeking Alpha’s screener, the top three healthcare stocks by quant rating are Clover Health Investments [CLOV], CareDx [CDNA] and Personalis [PSNL].