The R&D Market Pulse Index for the week ending November 10, 2017 closed at 3,786.82 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was down -0.29% (or -10.86 basis points) over the week ending November 3, 2017. Five R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.18% (Honda) to 4.47% (Qualcomm). Twenty R&D Index companies lost value last week from -0.32% (Alphabet/Google) to -5.34% (Bayer AG).
The overall stock market posted its first loss in three months last week as investors responded negatively to Congress’s plans for a tax overhaul. One of the major sticking points last week was the Senate’s plan to start any corporate tax reductions in 2019, compared to the House’s plan to start it in 2018. Analysts point to compromises in the tax reductions occuring due to the massive amounts of revenue needed to offset the initially proposed corporate tax reductions from 35% to 20%. 2018 is an election year and the Congress may modify their plans to make them more palatable to middle class voters at the expense of the proposed corporate tax cuts.
R&D Index member Apple became the first U.S. company to reach a market value of $900 billion following the announcement of its best quarterly profit in two years. Apple also was the first to breach the $800 billion mark in May 2017. Both Apple and R&D Index member Amazon also last week saw their stock values rise to more than 50% above their stock values on January 1, 2017.
R&D Index member Intel and its primary competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced last week that they are teaming up to combat their joint competitor, Nvidia Corp. to create a laptop computer chip. The new chip will utilize an Intel microprocessor and an AMD graphics processing unit (GPU). The primary market is focused on videogame laptops. This is Intel and AMD’s first device collaboration in thirty years with Intel holding market shares in microprocessors that approached 100% during that interim. Intel is expected to spend $14.2 billion on R&D in 2018, while AMD will invest $0.8 billion and Nvidia will invest $1.8 billion.
R&D Index member Google announced last week that it had secured Salesforce.com as a client for its Google Cloud services. Salesforce (with annual R&D investments of more than $1.8 billion) is expected to provide revenue allowing Google to keep pace with Cloud market-leader Amazon and runner-up Microsoft (Azure) in the increasingly competitve and rapid growth technology.
| R&D Index Week Ending November 10, 2017 |
| Ticker | Exchange | 2017 R&D billions$ | 11/03/17 | 11/10/17 | 11/10/17 to 11/3/17 | 11/10/17 to 1/1/17 | ||
| 1 | Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 17,774 | 1,111.60 | 1,125.35 | 1.24% | 50.07% |
| 2 | Alphabet/Google | GOOGL | NASDAQ | 15,845 | 1,049.99 | 1,044.15 | -0.56% | 31.76% |
| 3 | Microsoft | MSFT | NASDAQ | 13,987 | 84.14 | 83.87 | -0.32% | 34.97% |
| 4 | Intel | INTC | NASDAQ | 13,499 | 46.34 | 45.58 | -1.64% | 25.67% |
| 5 | Apple | AAPL | NASDAQ | 11,506 | 172.50 | 174.67 | 1.26% | 50.81% |
| 6 | Volkswagen AG | VLKAY | OTC | 11,260 | 38.40 | 37.06 | -3.49% | 29.22% |
| 7 | Roche Pharm | RHHBY | OTC | 10,174 | 29.10 | 28.69 | -1.41% | 0.56% |
| 8 | Toyota | TM | NYSE | 9,170 | 125.62 | 124.49 | -0.90% | 6.22% |
| 9 | Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | NYSE | 9,060 | 140.08 | 139.56 | -0.37% | 21.14% |
| 10 | Novartis | NVS | NYSE | 7,870 | 83.70 | 82.38 | -1.58% | 13.10% |
| 11 | General Motors | GM | NYSE | 7,468 | 42.34 | 42.66 | 0.76% | 22.45% |
| 12 | Pfizer | PFE | NYSE | 7,288 | 35.55 | 35.18 | -1.04% | 8.31% |
| 13 | Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | NYSE | 6,942 | 62.22 | 60.86 | -2.19% | 4.14% |
| 14 | Cisco | CSCO | NASDAQ | 6,827 | 34.47 | 33.99 | -1.39% | 12.48% |
| 15 | Qualcomm | QCOM | NASDAQ | 6,723 | 61.81 | 64.57 | 4.47% | -0.97% |
| 16 | Oracle | ORCL | NYSE | 6,702 | 50.18 | 49.32 | -1.71% | 28.27% |
| 17 | Honda | HMC | NYSE | 6,519 | 32.87 | 32.93 | 0.18% | 12.81% |
| 18 | Astra Zeneca PLC | AZN | NYSE | 6,363 | 34.48 | 32.91 | -4.55% | 20.46% |
| 19 | Merck & Co. | MRK | NYSE | 5,759 | 56.06 | 55.48 | -1.03% | -5.76% |
| 20 | Daimler | DDAIY | OTC | 5,084 | 73.25 | 70.57 | -3.66% | -0.21% |
| 21 | Bayer AG | BAYN | XETRA | 4,880 | 116.00 | 109.80 | -5.34% | 10.76% |
| 22 | Sanofi SA | SNY | NYSE | 4,755 | 45.74 | 45.00 | -1.53% | 11.28% |
| 23 | IBM | IBM | NYSE | 4,628 | 151.58 | 149.16 | -1.60% | -10.14% |
| 24 | GlaxoSmithKline | GSK | NYSE | 4,508 | 36.15 | 35.30 | -2.35% | -8.34% |
| 25 | Eli Lilly Co | LLY | NYSE | 4,489 | 83.51 | 83.29 | -0.26% | 13.24% |
| Total | 209,080 | 3,797.68 | 3,786.82 | -0.29% | 26.97% | |||
| Biopharmaceutical | 722.59 | 708.45 | -1.96% | 9.78% | ||||
| Automotive | 312.48 | 307.71 | -1.53% | 9.65% | ||||
| ICT | 1,651.01 | 1,645.31 | -0.35% | 25.93% | ||||
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 2017 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 2017 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.
The companies used in the R&D Index include Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Volkswagen AG, Roche Pharma, Toyota, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, General Motors, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cisco, Qualcomm, Oracle, Honda Motor Company, Astra Zeneca plc, Merck & Company, Daimler, Bayer AG, Sanofi SA, IBM, GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly Co. Stock prices are based on those stocks traded on the U.S. exchanges. R&D Index trends (in the stock prices) are just one indicator of the amount of capital available to these high-technology companies to invest in R&D and should not be implied to indicate the absolute value of R&D investments made by these organizations. The companies chosen for the R&D Index have very large sophisticated internal and global R&D organizations with each company investing between $4.5 and $17 billion annually on their R&D efforts.
