Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
Speaker 2: in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Speaker 3: Now let's have a look at some of the individual
Speaker 3: stocks on the move today here in Europe. I'm Caroline
Speaker 3: Hepget and I'm joined by Bloomberg reporta Chloe Malay. So
Speaker 3: we have a major route I think you have to
Speaker 3: call it that for Nova Nordisks Shares. Why Yeah, and
Speaker 3: a very very tough morning for Novo. So the reason
Speaker 3: why is because it expects a very steep drop in
Speaker 3: sales in twenty twenty six, and that is because it's
Speaker 3: facing a lot of pricing pressure. So there's two main
Speaker 3: reasons behind that.
Speaker 1: There's, first of all, pricing pressure coming from the Trump
Speaker 1: Administration's efforts to cap the price of drugs in the US.
Speaker 1: And then there's also pricing pressure coming from a growing
Speaker 1: price war between all of the companies that operate in
Speaker 1: that obesity space. So that includes of course Nova's biggest rival,
Speaker 1: Elay Lilly, but then also all of the smaller companies
Speaker 1: that are selling those cheaper copycat versions of weight loss drugs.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of pricing pressure for Nova, and
Speaker 1: it's really feeling that hit. And twenty twenty five had
Speaker 1: already been a very difficult year for the company. There
Speaker 1: had been leadership changes that had really rattled investors quite
Speaker 1: a bit. Of course, that competition that I've just mentioned,
Speaker 1: and also quite a few setbacks in terms of drug trials,
Speaker 1: and so the results today were really an opportunity for
Speaker 1: Nova to reassure the market, but instead they've painted a
Speaker 1: very bleak picture of what can be expected for this year.
Speaker 1: One bright spot maybe the obesity bill that Nova is launched.
Speaker 1: Apparently that has been quite a strong launch, so we'll
Speaker 1: see if that's actually enough to offset all of those
Speaker 1: other challenges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I read in the Dow Jones apparently there are
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy thousand people on that tree and
Speaker 3: in the first four weeks. So yeah, that report of
Speaker 3: the pill, you know, being taken up swiftly. But as
Speaker 3: you say, pricing pressures, I think you've made that really
Speaker 3: clear in lots of different areas for Nova nor Disk.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's been speaking to the CEO about it. Also. What
Speaker 3: about the bank earnings though, take us through Santander, a
Speaker 3: big deal for the business is they've really head to
Speaker 3: North America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they really do. So they are buying a
Speaker 1: Webster Financial in a twelve billion dollar deal, so really
Speaker 1: really big acquisition. And so this marks an expansion in
Speaker 1: the US for Santander, and that is part of the
Speaker 1: company's broader strategy of wanting to expand in growth markets
Speaker 1: and maybe cutting back a little bit more from the
Speaker 1: exposure that it has to Europe and shows. We're actually
Speaker 1: down this morning with Alis saying that the deal might
Speaker 1: not be super well received because shareholders would have maybe
Speaker 1: preferred more shareholder returns rather than rather than the deal.
Speaker 1: And there's also some questions about how tricky the integration
Speaker 1: is going to be for those two companies, given that
Speaker 1: Santander has to integrate both Webster and TSB as well,
Speaker 1: which had brought back in July at the same time.
Speaker 1: So any successful integration will be really key and perhaps
Speaker 1: once that transition period is over, will be able to
Speaker 1: see the benefits a little more clearly. It's quite an
Speaker 1: interesting move for Santandier because it's now one of the
Speaker 1: very few European banks to gain that foothold and want
Speaker 1: to grow that foothold in the US. You know, BBVA
Speaker 1: sold as US operations, BNP exited the US retail market,
Speaker 1: so it's definitely kind of doing something that is kind
Speaker 1: of against the grain a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's interesting. So that on banks. Then what about
Speaker 3: the continuation of the AI disruption trade because it is
Speaker 3: affecting a number of names, including LSEG in Europe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is definitely continuing today after the massive
Speaker 1: sell off in those software and financial services stocks that
Speaker 1: we saw yesterday, after of course, Anthropic announced this new
Speaker 1: AI tour to automate legal work, and investors saw that
Speaker 1: as another sign that AI might be a major disruptor
Speaker 1: to those software companies, and so they rush to limit
Speaker 1: their exposure to any company that might be seen as
Speaker 1: an AI loser, and LSEG is seen as one of those,
Speaker 1: you know, provides software data analytics tools to financial professionals
Speaker 1: like research analysts or traders, and the worry is that
Speaker 1: AA tools might actually be able to do this faster
Speaker 1: and cheaper, and so that is really dragging down those
Speaker 1: shares in LSEG. This morning, JPMorgan analysts did say that
Speaker 1: software and it services stocks were being sentenced before trial
Speaker 1: by investors and part of This might perhaps be a
Speaker 1: little bit of an overreaction, but there has been growing
Speaker 1: concerns and it looks like what was perhaps more more
Speaker 1: intangible worry is now become a lot more a lot
Speaker 1: more tangible for investors.
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