The R&D Market Watch Index for the week ending January 26, 2018 closed at 4,271.93 for the 25 companies. The Index was up 4.40 percent (or 177.91 basis points) from the week ending January 19, 2018. Twenty R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.72% (Qualcomm) to 11.74 percent (Intel). Five R&D Index companies lost value last week from -0.08% (Honda) to -3.89 percent (Apple).
January has been an exceptionally strong month for most U.S. stocks, with all major indices setting all-time records. In addition, for the first time the current value of all R&D Index members exceeded their values of January 1, 2017 by a range of 0.81 percent (IBM) to 86.97 percent (Amazon) and an average for the 25 companies of 43.24 percent.
The Commerce Dept. reported on Friday that U.S. GDP rose at an annual 2.6 percent rate in the fourth quarter, below the more than 3 percent rates in the second and third quarters, but more than the 2 percent average seen since the early 2000s.
Following several weeks of stock valuation drops based roughly on security faults found in its chips, Intel stock rose more than 10 percent for the week following announcement of record revenue growth in the fourth quarter as sales in its data center business jumped 20 percent. Intel also attributed its revenue growth to increased demand from cloud vendors and communications network suppliers. Intel has stated its researchers are “working around the clock” to fix the security flaws found in most of its devices, and stated that they still have more work to do. Intel has yet to see any downturn in demand based on the flaws and its market leadership position will allow that trend to continue into 2018.
Following remarks by President Trump of desiring a weaker dollar, which makes U.S. goods cheaper for foreign countries, the U.S. dollar index dropped to its lowest level since late-2014. The ICE dollar index fell below 90 after peaking at about 103 in early 2017.
Factories are reporting that they plan to invest in factory upgrades following the tax windfall they will experience. Manufacturing output grew 3 percent in December 2017 compared with a 1 percent increase seen in December 2016, according to Federal Reserve data released last week. Manufacturing equipment orders are forecast to increase by up to 12 percent, according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology, up from 9 percent in November 2017. Up to 50 percent % of this equipment, including robotics, is manufactured outside the U.S.
R&D Index Week Ending January 26, 2018
| Ticker | Exchange | 2017 R&D billions$ | 01/19/18 | 01/26/18 | 1/26/18 to 1/19/18 | 1/26/18 to 1/1/17 | |
| Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 17,774 | 1,294.58 | 1,402.05 | 8.30% | 86.97% |
| Alphabet/Google | GOOGL | NASDAQ | 15,845 | 1,143.50 | 1,187.56 | 3.85% | 49.86% |
| Microsoft | MSFT | NASDAQ | 13,987 | 90.00 | 94.06 | 4.51% | 51.37% |
| Intel | INTC | NASDAQ | 13,499 | 44.82 | 50.08 | 11.74% | 38.08% |
| Apple | AAPL | NASDAQ | 11,506 | 178.46 | 171.51 | -3.89% | 48.08% |
| Volkswagen AG | VLKAY | OTC | 11,260 | 45.70 | 45.64 | -0.13% | 59.14% |
| Roche Pharm | RHHBY | OTC | 10,174 | 30.69 | 30.89 | 0.65% | 8.27% |
| Toyota | TM | NYSE | 9,170 | 139.85 | 139.56 | -0.21% | 19.08% |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | NYSE | 9,060 | 147.36 | 145.33 | -1.38% | 26.14% |
| Novartis | NVS | NYSE | 7,870 | 86.94 | 93.91 | 8.02% | 28.93% |
| General Motors | GM | NYSE | 7,468 | 43.15 | 43.49 | 0.79% | 24.83% |
| Pfizer | PFE | NYSE | 7,288 | 36.86 | 39.01 | 5.83% | 20.10% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | NYSE | 6,942 | 62.28 | 64.25 | 3.16% | 9.94% |
| Cisco | CSCO | NASDAQ | 6,827 | 41.29 | 42.56 | 3.08% | 40.83% |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | NASDAQ | 6,723 | 68.04 | 68.53 | 0.72% | 5.11% |
| Oracle | ORCL | NYSE | 6,702 | 50.58 | 52.75 | 4.29% | 37.19% |
| Honda | HMC | NYSE | 6,519 | 36.24 | 36.21 | -0.08% | 24.05% |
| Astra Zeneca PLC | AZN | NYSE | 6,363 | 35.44 | 36.63 | 3.36% | 34.08% |
| Merck & Co. | MRK | NYSE | 5,759 | 61.28 | 62.04 | 1.24% | 5.38% |
| Daimler | DDAIY | OTC | 5,084 | 91.95 | 93.18 | 1.34% | 31.76% |
| Bayer AG | BAYN | XETRA | 4,880 | 32.05 | 33.48 | 4.46% | 23.86% |
| Sanofi SA | SNY | NYSE | 4,755 | 44.60 | 45.76 | 2.60% | 13.16% |
| IBM | IBM | NYSE | 4,628 | 162.37 | 167.34 | 3.06% | 0.81% |
| GlaxoSmithKline | GSK | NYSE | 4,508 | 38.50 | 39.03 | 1.38% | 1.35% |
| Eli Lilly Co | LLY | NYSE | 4,489 | 85.49 | 87.08 | 1.86% | 18.40% |
| Total | 209,080 | 4,092.02 | 4,271.93 | 4.40% | 43.24% | ||
| Biopharmaceutical | 661.49 | 677.41 | 2.41% | 4.97% | |||
| Automotive | 356.89 | 358.08 | 0.33% | 27.60% | |||
| ICT | 1,779.06 | 1,834.39 | 3.11% |
40.40% |
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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.
