Novo Nordisk Hits $500bn; Tech Earnings Underwhelm; Tesla Slips

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Novo Nordisk Passes $500bn (And Keeps Going)

After its share price extended gains following positive prognostications for Wegovy, its blockbuster anti-obesity drug, Novo Nordisk [NVO] on Wednesday became the second European company to surpass a market value of $500bn — only Dior-owner LVMH [MC:PA] has reached such heights. CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said the Danish pharma giant will more than double Wegovy supplies in the US.

Is AI Showing Signs It’s a Bubble?

Big tech firms with a major stake in artificial intelligence (AI) lost $190bn in stock market value on Tuesday, after broadly positive quarterly results still failed to meet superheated expectations. Among them were Alphabet [GOOGL], which fell as much as 6.1% pre-market on Wednesday, while AMD [AMD] fell as much as 7.4%. “Companies are continually having to prove themselves and continually prove the value proposition of AI,” Katrina Dudley, an analyst at Franklin Templeton, told Bloomberg Television.

Tesla Drops 2% Premarket on Ruling

A US judge has thrown out Elon Musk’s record-breaking $56bn pay package from Tesla [TSLA], calling it “an unfathomable sum” which was unfair to shareholders. The judge said that the share-based payment was negotiated by directors beholden to the CEO. Registrations of new Tesla vehicles in California dropped 10% in Q4 2023, for the first time in over three years. The state is considered one of the brand’s most important markets.

Zuck to Defend Meta on Child Safety

“Overall, teens tell us this is a positive part of their lives,” Meta [META] CEO Mark Zuckerberg will tell a US Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, as he tries to counter the narrative that social media has a deleterious effect on the mental health of young people. However, Bloomberg reported that in 2021 Zuckerberg rejected an internal request to beef up child safety.

Samsung Semiconductor Unit Lost Money In 2023

South Korean giant Samsung [005930:KS] logged a 34.6% year-over-year drop in operating profit in Q4. Revenue of ₩67.8trn failed to meet LSEG analyst estimates of ₩69.3trn, and was down 3.8% against the year-ago quarter. For FY 2023, its semiconductor business lost a record ₩14.9trn, versus a profit of ₩23.8trn in 2022. Samsung is the world’s biggest producer of dynamic random-access memory chips.