The R&D Index for the holiday-shortened week ending July 6, 2018 closed at 4,401.34 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was up 1.61% (or 69.70 basis points) from the week ending June 29, 2018. Twenty-one R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.20% (Astra Zeneca) to 6.34% (Daimler). Four R&D Index companies lost value last week from -0.14% (Bayer AG) to -0.74% (Cisco).
A report issued by the Dept. of Labor on Friday noted that the U.S. added 213,000 jobs in June, while the unemployment rate ticked up from its record low of 3.8% in May to 4.0% in June. The economy has now grown by an average of 250,000 job increases per month in 2018 with 62.9% of Americans now working or looking for work. This news mostly reinforces the Federal Reserve’s rate increase schedule (no change at the Fed’s July 31/August 1 meeting and a 0.25% increase at their September 25-26 meeting, and possibly a fourth increase for 2018 at the December 18-19 meeting). The Trump Administration’s $30 billion in tariffs for Chinese exports were put in place on Friday and did not have any effect on the week’s economic changes.
Boeing last week agreed to buy an 80% controlling interest in Brazil’s Embraer commercial airline business. Embraer was expected to spend $50 million in R&D in 2018, while Boeing invests about $3.2 billion. Boeing competitor Airbus completed its acquisition of Canada’s Bombardier last week, which thereby adds small airliner capabilities to both large airframe manufacturers.
R&D Index member Sanofi SA announced last week that it was launching a Global R&D Operations Hub with a specialized focus on digitalization and big data analysis in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China. This center adds to its existing Asia-Pacific R&D Center in Shanghai, China. The new R&D hub will focus on analysis of Sanofi’s global multicenter clinical trials and files across the company’s therapeutic areas. It is expected to host about 300 local R&D experts by 2020. It joins existing R&D hubs in France and the U.S.
Finland-based Nokia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s Internet giant Tencent to set up a full-scale 5G lab in Shenzhen, China, where Tencent’s headquarters are located. The MOU provides Nokia with new growth opportunities and the opportunity to move faster into 5G testing and implementation.
| R&D Index Week Ending July 6, 2018 |
| Ticker | Exchange | 2018 R&D millions U.S. $ | 06/29/18 | 07/06/18 | 7/6/18 to 6/29/18 | 7/6/18 to 12/29/17 | |
| Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 26,750 | 1,699.80 | 1,710.63 | 0.64% | 46.27% |
| Alphabet/Google | GOOGL | NASDAQ | 18,796 | 1,115.65 | 1,140.17 | 2.20% | 8.24% |
| Apple | AAPL | NASDAQ | 14,037 | 185.11 | 187.97 | 1.54% | 11.07% |
| Intel | INTC | NASDAQ | 13,702 | 49.71 | 51.37 | 3.34% | 11.29% |
| Microsoft | MSFT | NASDAQ | 13,558 | 98.61 | 101.16 | 2.59% | 18.26% |
| Roche Pharm | RHHBY | OTC | 12,284 | 27.63 | 28.32 | 2.50% | -10.32% |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | NYSE | 11,493 | 121.34 | 125.75 | 3.63% | -10.00% |
| Merck & Co. | MRK | NYSE | 11,323 | 60.70 | 62.20 | 2.47% | 10.54% |
| Volkswagen AG | VLKAY | OTC | 10,915 | 33.00 | 34.11 | 3.36% | -15.65% |
| Toyota | TM | NYSE | 10,848 | 128.81 | 129.56 | 0.58% | 1.88% |
| Novartis | NVS | NYSE | 8,934 | 75.54 | 77.17 | 2.16% | -8.09% |
| Honda | HMC | NYSE | 8,180 | 29.27 | 29.19 | -0.27% | -14.35% |
| Pfizer | PFE | NYSE | 7,942 | 36.28 | 37.11 | 2.29% | 2.46% |
| Daimler | DDAIY | OTC | 7,615 | 64.20 | 68.27 | 6.34% | -19.26% |
| General Motors | GM | NYSE | 7,278 | 39.40 | 39.16 | -0.61% | -4.46% |
| Oracle | ORCL | NYSE | 7,001 | 44.06 | 46.00 | 4.40% | -2.71% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | NYSE | 6,981 | 55.34 | 56.56 | 2.20% | -7.70% |
| Eli Lilly Co | LLY | NYSE | 6,769 | 85.33 | 87.39 | 2.41% | 3.47% |
| GlaxoSmithKline | GSK | NYSE | 6,394 | 40.31 | 41.02 | 1.76% | 15.65% |
| Cisco | CSCO | NASDAQ | 6,009 | 43.03 | 42.71 | -0.74% | 11.51% |
| IBM | IBM | NYSE | 5,842 | 139.70 | 142.48 | 1.99% | -7.13% |
| Bayer AG | BAYN | OTC | 5,743 | 27.58 | 27.54 | -0.14% | -11.42% |
| Astra Zeneca PLC | AZN | NYSE | 5,483 | 35.11 | 35.18 | 0.20% | 1.38% |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | NASDAQ | 5,183 | 56.12 | 57.84 | 3.06% | -9.65% |
| Sanofi SA | SNY | NYSE | 4,694 | 40.01 | 42.48 | 6.17% | -1.21% |
| Total | 243,754 | 4,331.64 | 4,401.34 | 1.61% | 16.07% | ||
| Biopharmaceutical | 605.17 | 620.72 | 2.57% | -2.67% | |||
| Automotive | 294.68 | 300.29 | 1.90% | -8.24% | |||
| ICT | 1,732.01 | 1,769.70 | 2.18% | 6.78% | |||
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 2018 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.
