1.LENEVO : China’s Lenovo Group Ltd said it expects strong demand for personal computers to continue until at least 2025 as the pandemic permanently changes how people live and work, after it reported a more than doubling in first-quarter profit.
The world’s biggest maker of personal computers (PC) said it was not seeing a slowdown in pandemic-driven demand, as some analysts have predicted, because many people continue to work from home while companies are purchasing more PCs as they re-open offices.
“The hybrid working model will become the new normal, the PC has come back to the centre of people’s work and lives,” Lenovo’s Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang told Reuters in an interview.
Shares in the company rose by as much as 9.7% after the company posted an almost 120% jump in first-quarter profit to $466 million, and were on course for their biggest daily percentage gain since March 30..
Analysts had expected a profit of $345.23 million, according to Refinitiv’s average of six forecasts.
2.JP MORGAN:- Global payments giant JPMorgan Chase & Co has launched a real-time payments option that it hopes will increase its edge in the financial industry’s battle to handle more of the surging volumes of global digital payments.
The new product, called request for pay, lets corporate clients send payment requests to the bank’s roughly 57 million retail clients who use its app or website, cutting the cost and time it takes for those companies to get paid, said Cyrus Bhathawalla, the bank’s global head of real-time payments.
The digital payments product is one of a handful JPMorgan has in the works, as the largest U.S. bank invests heavily in the sector which has grown sharply as more commerce occurs online, a trend further boosted during the coronavirus lockdowns.
“Our job is to give multiple different payment types so corporates and merchants can provide the right options to their customers,” Bhathawalla said.
The service went live last month and began a pilot phase with its first corporate client, a fintech company, last week. Executives declined to name the company.
JPMorgan envisions clients like a gas distributing company using the service to get paid faster for filling up a gas station’s supply tanks, Bhathawalla said.
Currently, that kind of company may have to wait a week to get paid. A digital payment could happen in less than 30 seconds, he said.
3.PFIZER:- Shares of Pfizer Inc hit a record high on Tuesday for the first time in more than 20 years as shares of COVID-19 vaccine makers have surged amid rising coronavirus cases in the United States.
Pfizer shares were last up 4.9% at $48.25, climbing as high as $48.57 during the session. The stock’s previous intraday high was $47.44, reached on April 12, 1999.
The percentage gain was the stock’s biggest one-day rise since Nov. 9, when Pfizer released positive data for its COVID-19 vaccine.
“I think they are finally getting credit for the vaccine,” said Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which owns Pfizer shares.
While investors had treated the vaccine before as “a one-time cash infusion … it is really going to be a durable business, unfortunately,” Jonas said, adding that Pfizer should be able to leverage the vaccine’s technology for use against other types of disease as well.
Pfizer’s share gains come as those of another coronavirus vaccine maker, Moderna Inc, have also been on a tear.
4.CITI GROUP:-Citigroup Inc will require U.S. employees returning to its New York headquarters and offices in some cities to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the bank’s head of human resources, Sara Wechter, said in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
The bank expects these employees to start returning to the office for at least two days a week starting Sept. 13, the post said.
The bank’s decision would also affect employees in the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and D.C. offices. The bank will also be providing rapid test kits for its employees.
These employees will be required to wear masks given fears around the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus.
For employees at other branches, Citigroup would “strongly encourage”, but not mandate vaccination.
Wall Street remains divided over postponing back-to-office plans due to the Delta variant. Some major firms including Wells Fargo & Co and BlackRock Inc have delayed their return plans, while others including Bank of America Corp and Morgan Stanley have stuck to the previous guidance.
.5.INTEL – A U.S. judge has rejected Intel Corp’s request to set aside a jury verdict ordering the chipmaker to pay VLSI Technology LLC $2.18 billion for patent infringement.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright in Waco, Texas, denied Intel’s motion for a new trial in a sealed order issued late Monday.
Jurors on March 2 had awarded VLSI $1.5 billion and $675 million for Intel’s respective infringement of two patents that were once owned by Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors NV .
Intel said in a statement on Tuesday it was disappointed with the decision and intended to appeal. It also called for reforms to prevent “litigation investors” from using low-quality patents to extract “exorbitant” damages, saying the practice stifles innovation and hurts the economy.
In seeking a new trial, Intel said the verdict was tainted by erroneous jury instructions and evidentiary rulings, and appeared to be based on earlier Intel settlements that VLSI’s own damages expert admitted were not comparable.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel noted that the verdict was the second largest by a jury in a patent case, and that the three other largest verdicts had been vacated.
A different Waco jury ruled in Intel’s favor on April 21 in a separate patent infringement lawsuit in which VLSI had sought $3.1 billion.
