The R&D Index for the week ending April 12, 2019 closed at 4,704.97 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was up 0.19% (or 8.74 basis points) from the week ending April 5, 2019. The stock of 11 R&D Index members gained value from 0.31% (Amazon) to 4.31% (Volkswagen). The stock of 14 R&D Index members lost value from -0.11% (Toyota) to -4.73% (Novartis).
R&D Index members Amazon and Microsoft are in talks with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as part of the U.S.-China trade talks to discuss issues surrounding China’s cloud market. The Ministry is one of China’s main regulators for the cloud industry. While Amazon’s AWS is the global cloud leader (51.8% market share), it only has a 6% share in China—Alibaba is China’s cloud leader with a 47% market share. Neither side has released any information on the trade talks, although China says they have made recent concessions.
R&D Index member Google opened its first artificial intelligence (AI) research center in Africa last week, in Ghana’s capital city, Accra. The center’s staff includes research scientists and software engineers from nine countries including Lesotho, Uganda and Ireland, among others. It also supports graduate programs in Machine Learning at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in South Africa.
According to the Labor Department last week, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.41% in March over February. The producer price index (PPI), however, rose 0.6% in March, the largest increase since last October.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global forecast for growth last week to 3.3%, from 3.5% in January and 3.7% in October. The IMF attributed the decline to a broad environment of increased trade tensions and tariff hikes between the U.S. and China, a decline in business confidence, a tightening of financial conditions and higher policy uncertainties. U.S. growth forecast slipped to 2.3% from 2.5%, while China’s growth forecast rose to 6.3% from 6.2%, over previous IMF forecasts made in January.
Data released last week revealed the U.S.’s continued economic strength. Initial jobless claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday declined to a seasonally adjusted 196,000 for the week ending April 6, the lowest level since the beginning of October 1969.
| R&D Index Week Ending April 12, 2019 |
| Ticker | Exchange | 2018 R&D millions U.S. $ | 04/05/19 | 04/12/19 | 4/12/19 to 4/5/19 | 4/12/19 to 12/31/18 | ||
| 1 | Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 26,750 | 1,837.28 | 1,843.06 | 0.31% | 22.71% |
| 2 | Alphabet/Google | GOOGL | NASDAQ | 18,796 | 1,211.45 | 1,222.73 | 0.93% | 17.01% |
| 3 | Apple | AAPL | NASDAQ | 14,037 | 197.00 | 198.87 | 0.95% | 26.07% |
| 4 | Intel | INTC | NASDAQ | 13,702 | 55.60 | 56.42 | 1.47% | 20.22% |
| 5 | Microsoft | MSFT | NASDAQ | 13,558 | 119.89 | 120.95 | 0.88% | 19.08% |
| 6 | Roche Pharm | RHHBY | OTC | 12,284 | 34.22 | 33.09 | -3.30% | 6.47% |
| 7 | Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | NYSE | 11,493 | 136.18 | 135.98 | -0.15% | 5.37% |
| 8 | Merck & Co. | MRK | NYSE | 11,323 | 81.15 | 79.43 | -2.12% | 3.95% |
| 9 | Volkswagen AG | VWAGY | OTC | 10,915 | 16.95 | 17.68 | 4.31% | 13.33% |
| 10 | Toyota | TM | NYSE | 10,848 | 122.54 | 122.40 | -0.11% | 5.44% |
| 11 | Novartis | NVS | NYSE | 8,934 | 84.22 | 80.24 | -4.73% | -6.49% |
| 12 | Honda | HMC | NYSE | 8,180 | 28.45 | 27.91 | -1.90% | 5.52% |
| 13 | Pfizer | PFE | NYSE | 7,942 | 42.99 | 41.71 | -2.98% | -4.44% |
| 14 | Daimler | DDAIY | OTC | 7,615 | 61.76 | 64.10 | 3.79% | 21.47% |
| 15 | General Motors | GM | NYSE | 7,278 | 38.94 | 39.71 | 1.98% | 18.71% |
| 16 | Oracle | ORCL | NYSE | 7,001 | 53.93 | 54.50 | 1.06% | 20.71% |
| 17 | Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | NYSE | 6,981 | 46.64 | 45.57 | -2.35% | -12.33% |
| 18 | Eli Lilly Co | LLY | NYSE | 6,769 | 126.99 | 123.06 | -3.09% | 6.34% |
| 19 | GlaxoSmithKline | GSK | NYSE | 6,394 | 41.60 | 40.60 | -2.40% | 6.25% |
| 20 | Cisco | CSCO | NASDAQ | 6,009 | 55.21 | 56.29 | 1.96% | 29.91% |
| 21 | IBM | IBM | NYSE | 5,842 | 143.28 | 144.35 | 0.75% | 26.99% |
| 22 | Bayer AG | BAYN | OTC | 5,743 | 17.28 | 17.24 | -0.23% | -1.88% |
| 23 | Astra Zeneca PLC | AZN | NYSE | 5,483 | 40.70 | 39.52 | -2.90% | 4.05% |
| 24 | Qualcomm | QCOM | NASDAQ | 5,183 | 57.99 | 56.95 | -1.79% | 0.09% |
| 25 | Sanofi SA | SNY | NYSE | 4,694 | 43.99 | 42.61 | -3.24% | -1.84% |
| Total | 243,754 | 4,696.23 | 4,704.97 | 0.19% | 16.82% | |||
| Biopharmaceutical | 705.73 | 679.05 | -3.78% | 1.22% | ||||
| Automotive | 268.64 | 271.80 | 1.18% | 11.23% | ||||
| ICT | 1,894.35 | 1,911.06 | 0.88% | 18.68% | ||||
About the R&D Index
R&D Magazine’s R&D Index is a weekly stock market summary of the top international companies involved in research and development. The top 25 industrial spenders of R&D in 2017 were selected based on the latest listings from Schonfeld & Associates’ June 2018 R&D Ratios & Budgets. These 25 companies include pharmaceutical (11 companies), automotive (5), ICT (8) and conglomerate (1) organizations who invested a cumulative total of more than $209 billion in R&D in 2017, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spent in the world by government, industries and academia combined, according to R&D Magazine’s 2019 Global R&D Funding Forecast. The stock prices used in the R&D Index are tabulated from NASDAQ, NYSE, XETRA and OTC common stock prices (in U.S. dollars) for the companies selected at the close of stock trading business on the Friday preceding the publication of the R&D Index in R&D Magazine’s R&D Daily eNewsletter.
