Abbott has launched three coronavirus tests in the United States, including an on-site diagnostic kit that can deliver results within minutes and heralded as a game changer by President Donald Trump. Sales at the company's nutrition products division rose 6.3% to $1.90 billion, benefiting from increased demand for children's products in late March as U.S. states began to impose shelter-in-place restrictions to curb the spread of the virus....
Once upon a time, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) was a rising star of the energy world, snapping up assets and blazing a trail towards a fracking future, in which it would supply oil markets around the world.Sea changes in the prices of oil and natural gas, however, combined with a too-aggressive acquisition spree and the debt loads that came with it have all but destroyed Chesapeake Energy's equity value. Over the past five years, the stock has tumbled from a split-adjusted high of more than $3,300 a share, to just $16.38 per share as of Wednesday's close -- vaporizing 99.5% of the stock's value.Now, you may not remember Chesapeake stock ever costing "3,300" a share -- and there's a reason for that. Fact is, Chesapeake stock never actually got anywhere near that high. What it did do was fall so very low that, after close of trading on Tuesday, the company was...
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) saw its profit plunge 48% in the first three months of the year as the U.S. investment bank set aside a $3.6 billion provision for potential losses in anticipation of a deteriorating economic outlook.First-quarter pre-tax income fell to $4.5 billion, or 40 cents a share from the year-ago period. Credit loss provisions in the quarter increased to $4.8 billion from $1 billion a year ago, fueled by a $3.6 billion reserve buffer to cover for potential losses as a result of the economic impact induced by the coronavirus pandemic. Revenue slid to $22.8 million from $23 million. Net interest income decreased 2% to $12.1 billion, as interest rates dropped.“Despite increasing our loan loss reserves, we earned $4 billion this quarter, maintained a significant buffer against our most stringent capital requirement, and ended the quarter with more liquidity than when we began,” said Bank of America Chairman...
(Bloomberg) -- No one is feeling the pain of an oil collapse more than the shale producers. Except, perhaps, their suppliers.Take Stacy Locke, chief executive officer for Pioneer Energy Services Corp. Locke says he had no choice but to abandon drilling in the Bakken shale basin after roughly 20 years there as plunging oil prices slashed activity, and a major customer in the region -- Whiting Petroleum Corp. -- went bankrupt. The end result of a tough year for oil: Pioneer will lose the last 6 rigs it has in the Bakken, with each one ending jobs for 20 or so workers.Since the start of 2019, the oilfield services sector has lost almost 50,000 jobs, or about 13% of its workforce. Meanwhile, the falloff in fracking -- the technology used to shake loose oil from shale -- is forecast to face its worst year ever with at least half of all...
