Tuesday, 9 November 2010

09.11.2010

Cyclical stocks led to push higher in the Nordic markets. The combined region was up around 1%. The pulp & paper industry was in strong mood after Moody’s raised Stora Enso’s rating outlook to positive. Stora Enso advanced nearly 5%.

Danish Brewing giant was the big loser today. Its Q3 result missed expectations gathered by SME direkt by around 10%. The miss notwithstanding, the company felt this was a period of continued strong performance. ”Consumer dynamics” in Northern & Western Europe remain challenging according to the company, which led to a slight decline in beer consumption. The situation in Russia certainly remains challenging as well. The company now expects an operating profit for 2010 of more than 10 billion DKK compared to around 10 billion it was forecasting earlier. The market reaction of a 5% decline did seem a little extreme.

Genmab updated 2010 financial guidance in connection with the Q3 report. There was a considerable reduction in operating loss, about to one fifth of a loss of what the company reported a year ago. Minnesota manufacturing facility fair value was however reduced by 130 million DKK and the anticipated sale was pushed back to 2011. The new guidance involves Arzerra sales and reduced operating expense guidance. CEO Jan van de Winkel felt that operating expense reduction and updated corporate strategy to focus in core competence of antibody creation and development have been significant steps in securing Genmab’s future. Ofatumumab and zalutumumab are the key current priorities. The agreement concerning Ofatumumab with GlaxoSmithKline was amended in July; GSK is going forward in autoimmune indications and Genmab will chip in oncology indications costs. Partnership discussions concerning zalutumumab are ”now being progressed in earnest” according to the company presentation. The report was well received by the markets and Genmab’s stock ended the day up 2.5%.

Bavarian Nordic gained nearly 6% on hinting that there are advanced discussion with several potential partners, many of them from the Big Pharma, for a phase III program for therapeutic advanced prostate cancer vaccine candidate PROSTVAC ongoing. The financial side of the report was, luckily for the stock market valuation, not in focus today.

Nordic Construction Company NCC reported increased earnings and declining net sales for the nine month period. In the latest quarter, the new orders were not quite as good as expected whereas the sales were above expectations. The rhetoric used for Q3 orders was that ” the rate of increase in orders received declined in the third quarter”. The company forecasts mild growth for 2011. The report failed to create a big wow factor and the stock ended down mildly.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen held discussion in Russia. Medvedev reiterated Russia’s strong desire of getting Visa-free travel within EU for russian citizens. Medvedev easing of regulations in Russia concerning the migrant registration process for foreigners to the Visa issue, telling those things should move forward in parallel. Halonen is receptive to the idea but the feeling is unlikely to be shared by most of the EU member states. However, the prevailing feeling is that a number of smaller issues bearing interest to the business community particularly in Finland will advance gradually in the coming months.

No comments:

Post a Comment