Stockwinners Market Radar for October 20, 2024 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

20:04 EDT Fly Intel: Top five weekend stock stories - Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. The striking machinists at Boeing (BA) announced a contract settlement that will be voted on this week. The union said, "With the assistance of Secretary of Labor Julie Su, this updated proposal between the Union and Boeing, includes several key improvements aimed at resolving the strike. In addition to what was offered in the rejected September 12, 2024 offer, here's a breakdown of the key elements. We are planning to vote this proposal on Wednesday October 23, 2024. Meanwhile, Boeing closed a deal this month to sell a small defense subsidiary that makes surveillance equipment for the U.S. military, the company said on Sunday, as the planemaker looks to shore up its struggling finances, Reuters reports. Boeing said Digital Receiver Technology, which makes wireless equipment used by intelligence services, will be sold to Thales Defense & Security, an arm of Europe's largest defense electronics company, Thales SA (THLLY). 2. Elliott Investment Management and Southwest Airlines (LUV) have begun discussing a potential settlement that would avoid a proxy fight for control of the airline's board, Bloomberg's Crystal Tse, Matthew Monks, and Mary Schlangenstein report, citing people familiar with the matter. Elliott has proposed a framework that would give it representation on Southwest's board but not control, said some of the people. The talks, which were progressing toward a resolution as of Saturday, haven't been finalized and could fall through, the people said. 3. Although it has had a rough year, Expedia (EXPE) could be an investor's ticket to paradise. A report that Uber Technologies (UBER) has looked into purchasing the online travel agent only makes the case stronger, Teresa Rivas writes in this week's edition of Barron's. As painful as the pandemic was for online travel agents, it allowed Expedia to rapidly integrate the numerous brands it had acquired in the prepandemic years into a more streamlined platform, giving it a chance to maximize the value of its data and capture the benefits of scale. Expedia also trades for just 11 times forward earnings, half of Booking's (BKNG) 22 times-simply too cheap for what Dan Ahrens, managing director and portfolio manager at AdvisorShares, calls a "blue-chip travel stock." 4. Paramount's (PARA) "Smile 2" won this weekend at the North American box office with a $23M debut from 3,619 locations. Overseas, the film grossed an estimated $23M as well. "Smile 2" sports a B CinemaScore from audiences, versus the B- the first movie received. 5. Verizon (VZ), Pfizer (PFE), UPS (UPS), Kraft Heinz (KHC), T. Rowe Price (TROW), Chevron (CVX), CVS Health (CVS), and Sirius XM (SIRI) saw positive mentions in this week's edition of Barron's.

06:56 EDT Gilead, Merck announce from Phase 2 islatravir/lenacapavir combo study - Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Merck (MRK) announced new results from a Phase 2 clinical study evaluating the investigational combination of islatravir, an investigational nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitor, and lenacapavir, a first-in-class HIV-1 capsid inhibitor. These late-breaking data were presented during an oral session at IDWeek 2024, taking place in Los Angeles, and virtually, from October 16-19. At 48 weeks, the novel investigational combination maintained a high rate of viral suppression in virologically suppressed adults, a secondary endpoint of the study. Zero participants had a viral load of greater than or equal to50 copies/mL at Week 48. Week 24 results, including the study's primary endpoint, were previously presented at the 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. In this open-label, active-controlled study, virologically suppressed adults on Biktarvy were randomly allocated in a 1:1 ratio to receive either oral islatravir 2 mg and lenacapavir 300 mg once a week or to continue daily oral Biktarvy. The median age of participants was 40 years. Eighteen percent of participants were assigned female at birth, 50% were non-white, and 29% were Latine. The proportion of individuals with HIV-1 RNA less than50 c/mL at Week 48 by FDA snapshot algorithm, showed that participants who switched to treatment with once-weekly islatravir and lenacapavir or continued Biktarvy maintained comparable high rates of HIV suppression at Week 48. No participants treated with either ISL + LEN or Biktarvy had a viral load of greater than or equal to 50 copies/mL at Week 48. No grade 3 or 4 TRAEs related to the study drug were reported in either treatment group. Two participants discontinued ISL + LEN due to adverse events unrelated to the drug. At Week 48 no significant differences were seen between treatment groups in mean change from baseline in CD4+ T-cell counts or absolute lymphocyte counts. No participants discontinued due to a decrease in CD4+ T-cell or lymphocyte counts. Along with these most recent study results, the potent antiviral activities, and pharmacokinetic profiles of islatravir and lenacapavir support their continued development as an investigational once-weekly oral combination regimen for use in people with HIV who are virologically suppressed. This investigational combination of weekly oral ISL 2 mg + LEN 300 mg is being further evaluated as a fixed-dose combination regimen in two Phase 3 studies in virologically suppressed people with HIV.