Author: Vitaliy Dadalyan

Twitter Hack Hits Obama, Biden, Musk in Bitcoin Scam

(Bloomberg) -- The Twitter accounts of some of the most prominent U.S. political and business leaders, from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, were hacked Wednesday afternoon in an apparent effort to promote a Bitcoin scam.The attacks were stunning in scope and almost certainly coordinated. Others whose Twitter accounts were caught up in the security incident included Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Uber Technologies Inc., Apple Inc. and Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. The accounts sent out tweets promising to double the money of anyone sending funds via Bitcoin within 30 minutes.Twitter said it was aware of the incident impacting its accounts and is investigating. As the hack was unfolding, verified Twitter accounts suddenly lost the ability to post new tweets. “You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this...

California’s Top Oil Driller Files for Bankruptcy Protection

(Bloomberg) -- California Resources Corp. filed for bankruptcy, kicking off what could turn into the next wave of collapses among oil drillers and the businesses that depend on them.The company joins more than 200 oil explorers that have filed for court protection since 2015, and more may be coming in a matter of weeks. Denbury Resources Inc. and Noble Corp. missed their July debt payments, and Chaparral Energy Inc. asked lenders for more time, setting them on course for a possible default.With oil prices hovering around $40 a barrel, the industry simply isn’t able to support debts taken on when prices were near peak levels. California’s biggest crude producer has been weighed down by massive borrowings since its spinoff from Occidental Petroleum Corp. in late 2014, right at the start of the previous downturn in the crude market.Low levels of cash and stricter state drilling regulations added to the pressure on...

Co-Diagnostics: Soaring Demand for COVID-19 Test Kits Could Propel the Stock Even Higher

A stock with a 6-month gain of over 1500% is normally certain to raise some eyebrows. But, “normally” is a long distance away from the current reality, and that figure is the upside posted by shares of molecular diagnostics player Co-Diagnostics (CODX) since the turn of the year.While certainly not common place, these massive gains are not completely out of the ordinary in 2020, although primarily reserved for one specific group of stocks: those in the hunt for coronavirus related solutions.And CODX belongs squarely in that group. Actually, that’s not quite on point - Co-Diagnostics already has a solution, in the shape of its Logix Smart COVID-19 test.The U.S. has seen an explosion of new infections in several states, as the rush to re-open the economy has backfired. The record number of COVID-19 cases reported over the last few days signal that there is no end in sight to the pandemic...

BioNTech (BNTX): Fast Track Designation Does Not Justify Current Valuation, Says J.P. Morgan

Monday’s market selloff skipped past BioNTech (BNTX). The German biotech ended the session posting a 12% gain after news that two of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates it is co-developing with partner Pfizer were given Fast Track designation status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Any positive development in the search for a desperately needed coronavirus treatment or vaccine has prompted optimistic headlines accompanied by surging stock prices. However, J.P. Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov believes the headlines illustrate how much the public has taken to biotechs during these pandemic driven times, while the news amounts to… well, not much really.“The reality,” Kasimov said, “Is that this update is really not surprising or significant. It speaks more to the unmet need of the target indication (which is obvious in this situation) than it does to the investigative candidate(s) in question. Unlike Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD), fast track does not consider the clinical...

Tesla registrations in California nearly halve in second quarter: data

Tesla's only U.S. vehicle factory in California was shut for some six weeks of the quarter. The report released on Wednesday showed registrations in California, a bellwether market for the electric-car maker, plummeted almost 48% from a year earlier to 9,774 vehicles in the three months ended June 2020. Model 3 registrations in the state, which accounted for more than half of the total registrations, fell 63.6% to 5,951 vehicles....