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A statement from Google (GOOG, GOOGL) appears to contradict statements from President Trump in his afternoon declaration of a national emergency regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.
Speaking on availability of tests for the coronavirus, Trump said “Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location.”
“Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They’ve made tremendous progress,” he added.
He suggested the site would be ready Sunday evening.
Google quickly came out with a statement from Verily, its Alphabet-sister health unit: “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for COVID-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.
“We appreciate the support of government officials and industry partners and thank the Google engineers who have volunteered to be part of this effort.”
After hours: GOOG -0.4%; GOOGL -0.4%.
JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) has hired BofA and UBS to work on a second listing in Hong Kong, Reuters reports.
That would be part of a trend spurred by Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), which pulled off a huge listing in Hong Kong that was seen as a backup investor base if New York-listed shares were hit during the U.S. trade dispute. JD is listed on Nasdaq and has a market cap of $58.2B.
A Hong Kong listing could happen as early as mid-year, according to the report. But companies have not been able to conduct face-to-face meetings due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.
With the online move now happening at warp speed, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) says it plans to hire 100K additional employees, and is raising pay in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Europe by $2 per hour (or whatever the local currency is). The current starting wage for hourly workers is $15.
“We are seeing a significant increase in demand, which means our labor needs are unprecedented for this time of year,” says SVP of Operations Dave Clark.
Shares fell 5.2% today vs. a 12% plunge for the S&P 500.
The online e-commerce juggernaut has nearly 800,000 employees
GrubHub (GRUB +6.4%) is bucking the sharply lower market today as governmental orders closing in-restaurant service begin to stack up around the country.
A number of states have made such orders, including Ohio, Illinois, Washington and New York – moves that are pounding dine-in stocks.
GrubHub Friday said it would temporarily suspend commissions of up to $100M from independent restaurants impacted by coronavirus.
OpenTable data suggests that this past Saturday was particularly crushing for dine-in patronage around the country: Diners in Boston and New York -64%, Seattle -63%, San Francisco -58%, and much more.
“Getting a franchise name at an attractive valuation,” BMO upgrades Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) to Outperform from Market Perform.
With shares down 30% from the recent high, the team notes the stock as particularly appealing on a free cash flow basis.
Shares are down 10.3% premarket to $210. BMO’s $330 price target would represent 57% upside.
