The R&D Index for the week ending June 8, 2018 closed at 4,397.35 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was up 1.36% (or 59.13 basis points) from the week ending June 1, 2018. Eighteen R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.06% (Bristol-Myers Squibb) to 3.73% (Toyota). Seven R&D Index companies lost value last week from -0.20% (Google) to -3.62% (Roche Pharm).
R&D Index member IBM announced on Friday that it had developed a supercomputer named Summit that it says is the world’s fastest, up to two times faster than China’s Sunway TaihuLight, which has held the world’s fastest supercomputer title for the past two years. Summit will be sited at the Dept. of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Initial work scheduled for Summit includes R&D on machine learning algorithms for investigating genetic data to identify patterns associated with Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and opioid addiction. Summit is expected to be listed in the Top500 (supercomputers) to be published later this month.
Microsoft Buys GitHub
R&D Index member Microsoft announced last week that it was purchasing the coding collaboration site GitHub for $7.5 billion. The acquisition is expected to attract software developers to develop more applications for Microsoft’s cloud computing businesses. GitHub is particularly popular with open-source software developers.
Job Market on the Rise
For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Dept. of Labor reported last week that the number of available work positions exceeded the number of job seekers. U.S. job openings rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.7 million positions in April compared to the 6.3 million Americans who were unemployed during the month. This trend actually began during March and reinforces a historically tight labor market in the U.S. The reasons cited for this disparity include a shrinking share of U.S. adults in the labor market, students staying longer in college, and increasing drug use preventing people from taking jobs.
According to reports by JP Morgan Chase and HIS Market, business activity on a global basis slowed in May from multiyear highs. The global manufacturing index fell to 53.1 in May, a nine month low, while the services index for April fell to 53.8 from 54.8 in February.
The U.S. shipped a record $19.9 billion in petroleum in April, helping to narrow the U.S. trade deficit to $46.2 billion in April, a 2.1% reduction from March, which however is still more than 11% larger than it was in early 2017.
R&D Index Week Ending June 8, 2018
Ticker | Exchange | 2017 R&D billions$ | 6/01/18 | 06/08/18 | 6/8/18 to 6/1/18 | 6/8/18 to 12/29/18 | |
Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 17,774 | 1,641.54 | 1,683.99 | 2.59% | 44.00% |
Alphabet/Google | GOOGL | NASDAQ | 15,845 | 1,135.00 | 1,132.71 | -0.20% | 7.53% |
Microsoft | MSFT | NASDAQ | 13,987 | 100.79 | 101.63 | 0.83% | 18.81% |
Intel | INTC | NASDAQ | 13,499 | 57.08 | 55.05 | -3.56% | 19.26% |
Apple | AAPL | NASDAQ | 11,506 | 190.24 | 191.70 | 0.77% | 13.28% |
Volkswagen AG | VLKAY | OTC | 11,260 | 37.27 | 37.90 | 1.69% | -6.28% |
Roche Pharm | RHHBY | OTC | 10,174 | 27.38 | 26.39 | -3.62% | -16.43% |
Toyota | TM | NYSE | 9,170 | 131.31 | 136.21 | 3.73% | 7.11% |
Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | NYSE | 9,060 | 121.26 | 124.06 | 2.31% | -11.21% |
Novartis | NVS | NYSE | 7,870 | 75.60 | 75.21 | -0.52% | -10.42% |
General Motors | GM | NYSE | 7,468 | 43.20 | 44.25 | 2.43% | 7.95% |
Pfizer | PFE | NYSE | 7,288 | 36.25 | 36.67 | 1.16% | 1.24% |
Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | NYSE | 6,942 | 53.13 | 53.16 | 0.06% | -13.25% |
Cisco | CSCO | NASDAQ | 6,827 | 43.66 | 43.48 | -0.41% | 13.52% |
Qualcomm | QCOM | NASDAQ | 6,723 | 58.61 | 60.26 | 2.82% | -5.87% |
Oracle | ORCL | NYSE | 6,702 | 47.35 | 48.18 | 1.75% | 1.90% |
Honda | HMC | NYSE | 6,519 | 32.01 | 32.16 | 0.47% | -5.63% |
Astra Zeneca PLC | AZN | NYSE | 6,363 | 36.81 | 36.42 | -1.06% | 4.96% |
Merck & Co. | MRK | NYSE | 5,759 | 60.56 | 62.58 | 3.34% | 11.21% |
Daimler | DDAIY | OTC | 5,084 | 72.45 | 73.01 | 0.77% | -13.66% |
Bayer AG | BAYN | OTC | 4,880 | 30.38 | 30.10 | -0.92% | -3.18% |
Sanofi SA | SNY | NYSE | 4,755 | 38.79 | 38.99 | 0.52% | -9.33% |
IBM | IBM | NYSE | 4,628 | 141.95 | 146.14 | 2.95% | -4.75% |
GlaxoSmithKline | GSK | NYSE | 4,508 | 40.75 | 41.02 | 0.66% | 15.65% |
Eli Lilly Co | LLY | NYSE | 4,489 | 84.85 | 86.08 | 1.45% | 1.92% |
Total | 209,080 | 4,338.22 | 4,397.35 | 1.36% | 15.97% | ||
Biopharmaceutical | 605.76 | 610.68 | 0.81% | -4.24% | |||
Automotive | 316.24 | 323.53 | 2.31% | -1.13% | |||
ICT | 1,774.68 | 1,779.15 | 0.25% | 7.35% |
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.