The R&D Index for the week ending June 1, 2018 closed at 4,338.22 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was up 2.38% (or 100.90 basis points) from the week ending May 25, 2018. Sixteen R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.68% (Bristol-Myers Squibb) to 12.79% (General Motors). Nine R&D Index companies lost value last week from    -0.04% (Roche Pharm) to -4.70% (Daimler).

The U.S. Dept. of Labor reported on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate had dropped to 3.8%, the lowest since April 2000. Employers added 233,000 jobs in May, extending the job expansion rate to a record 92 months. Unemployment for women dropped to 3.6% in May, the lowest since 1953. Unemployment rates for most minorities and educational groups also dropped to record lows. Stocks responded to these reports by rising on Friday, which recouped most of the losses for earlier part of the week.

The unemployment rate is also an indirect indicator of an increasing demand of skilled workers in the technology sector. According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, universities are awarding more PhDs in fields like math, computer sciences and robotics, but there is an increasing shortage of degreed professionals to satisfy an increasing demand.

Japan’s Softbank Group last week announced that it would purchase a 19.6% share of R&D Index member GM’s Cruise Holdings LLC, a driverless-car developer GM purchased in 2016 for about $1 billion. The $2.25 billion deal is a part of Softbank’s $92 billion Vision fund. The deal resulted in a 13% gain in GM stock.

In a separate announcement, R&D Index member Google/Alphabet’s self-driving subsidiary Waymo LLC said it would buy as many as 62,000 minivans from Fiat Chrysler as part of its plan to increase the number of its autonomous vehicles the company has on the road. Three new independent autonomous vehicle-focused test tracks are planned to open in 2018 in the Detroit area: Toyota Research Institute’s 60-acre site in Ottawa Lake, the Univ. of Michigan/Microsoft-sponsored American Mobility Center’s 335-acre site in Ypsilanti Township and FT Techno’s 950-acre site in Fowlerville.

The U.S. Justice Dept. approved R&D Index member’s Bayer AG acquisition of Monsanto. Bayer was required to sell off about $9 billion in assets (to competitor BASF SE) to preserve competition. Bayer has stated that it has now received almost all regulatory approvals to close the deal and expects finalization within a short period of time.

R&D Index Week Ending June 1, 2018

	Ticker	Exchange	2017 R&D billions$	05/25/18	06/01/18	6/1/18 to 5/25/18	6/1/18 to 12/29/17
Amazon	AMZN	NASDAQ	17,774	1,610.15	1,641.54	1.95%	40.37%
Alphabet/Google	GOOGL	NASDAQ	15,845	1,075.66	1,135.00	5.52%	7.75%
Microsoft	MSFT	NASDAQ	13,987	98.36	100.79	2.47%	17.83%
Intel	INTC	NASDAQ	13,499	55.44	57.08	2.96%	23.66%
Apple	AAPL	NASDAQ	11,506	188.58	190.24	0.88%	12.42%
Volkswagen AG	VLKAY	OTC	11,260	39.01	37.27	-4.46%	-7.84%
Roche Pharm	RHHBY	OTC	10,174	27.39	27.38	-0.04%	-13.30%
Toyota	TM	NYSE	9,170	129.96	131.31	1.04%	3.25%
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	NYSE	9,060	121.47	121.26	-0.17%	-13.21%
Novartis	NVS	NYSE	7,870	76.10	75.60	-0.66%	-9.96%
General Motors	GM	NYSE	7,468	38.30	43.20	12.79%	5.39%
Pfizer	PFE	NYSE	7,288	35.68	36.25	1.60%	0.08%
Bristol-Myers Squibb	BMY	NYSE	6,942	52.77	53.13	0.68%	-13.30%
Cisco	CSCO	NASDAQ	6,827	43.26	43.66	0.92%	14.00%
Qualcomm	QCOM	NASDAQ	6,723	59.96	58.61	-2.25%	-8.45%
Oracle	ORCL	NYSE	6,702	47.00	47.35	0.74%	0.15%
Honda	HMC	NYSE	6,519	32.04	32.01	-0.09%	-6.07%
Astra Zeneca PLC	AZN	NYSE	6,363	37.04	36.81	-0.62%	6.08%
Merck & Co.	MRK	NYSE	5,759	59.09	60.56	2.49%	7.62%
Daimler	DDAIY	OTC	5,084	76.02	72.45	-4.70%	-14.32%
Bayer AG	BAYN	OTC	4,880	29.50	30.38	2.98%	-2.28%
Sanofi SA	SNY	NYSE	4,755	38.28	38.79	1.33%	-9.79%
IBM	IBM	NYSE	4,628	143.64	141.95	-1.18%	-7.48%
GlaxoSmithKline	GSK	NYSE	4,508	39.85	40.75	2.26%	14.89%
Eli Lilly Co	LLY	NYSE	4,489	82.77	84.85	2.51%	0.46%
Total			209,080	4,237.32	4,338.22	2.38%	14.41%
		Biopharmaceutical		599.94	605.76	0.97%	-5.02%
		Automotive		315.33	316.24	0.29%	-3.36%
		ICT		1,711.90	1,774.68	3.67%	7.08%

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.