The R&D Index: Market Watch for the week ending December 22, 2017 closed at 3,873.98 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was down -0.34% (or 13.12 basis points) from the week ending December 15, 2017. Twelve R&D Index companies gained value last week from 0.21% (Merck & Co.) to 7.26% (Intel). Twelve R&D Index companies lost value last week from -0.05% (Qualcomm) to -2.84% (Pfizer). R&D Index member IBM was unchanged for the week at 152.50.

Congress passed a stopgap spending bill last Thursday to keep the government open beyond the December 23 deadline. The new bill maintains government funding through January 19 and follows the tax overhaul bill which was passed on Friday. When legislators return from the holiday break, they will have just a few weeks in which to resolve issues, such as children’s health insurance and the so-called Dreamers category of immigrants, that could produce an even uglier showdown in preparing a new budget.

R&D Index member Toyota detailed its future electric vehicle (EV) plans last week. The plans include investing $13 billion in EV R&D by 2030 with half going toward battery development, working with battery supplier Panasonic, who also supplies batteries to Tesla. Toyota stated that they plan to introduce more than 10 EVs worldwide by the early-2020s.

Last sunday, Atlanta’s Hartfield airport suffered through an eleven-hour power blackout caused by a fire in electrical equipment. On Thursday, Georgia’s public service commission unanamously agreed to continue development of the two half-finished Vogtle nuclear power plants, following years of production delays including the bankruptcy of the primary developer, Westinghouse Electric Corp., previously owned by Toshiba.

Eight R&D Index members have more than $619 billion combined in offshore reserves that are theoretically released with the government’s passage of its new tax bill last week. Apple is the largest holder with $252.3 billion, followed by Microsoft, Cisco, Google/Alphabet, Oracle, Qualcomm, Intel and Amazon. One of the uses of these funds could be to reduce corporate debt and stock repurchases. The new tax bill will have mixed results for some large corporations. Those companies with large debt loads that initially thought that the interest on their debt would be deductable are now finding out the new bill limits thost interest payments. Most companies are currently evaluating their options in the new tax codes.

R&D Index member Roche announced last week that it was purchasing U.S. cancer-therapy company Ignyta for $1.7 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2018. Many of Roche’s cancer drugs were initially developed by Genentech, which Roche purchased in 2009, but have suffered from development of generics as of late.

R&D Index Week Ending December 22, 2017

		Ticker	Exchange	2017 R&D billions$	12/15/17	12/22/17	12/22/17 to 12/15/17	12/22/17 to 1/1/17
1	Amazon	AMZN	NASDAQ	17,774	1,179.14	1,168.36	-0.91%	55.81%
2	Alphabet/Google	GOOGL	NASDAQ	15,845	1,072.00	1,068.86	-0.29%	34.88%
3	Microsoft	MSFT	NASDAQ	13,987	85.85	85.51	-0.40%	37.61%
4	Intel	INTC	NASDAQ	13,499	43.54	46.70	7.26%	28.76%
5	Apple	AAPL	NASDAQ	11,506	173.97	175.01	0.60%	51.11%
6	Volkswagen AG	VLKAY	OTC	11,260	39.95	40.58	1.58%	41.49%
7	Roche Pharm	RHHBY	OTC	10,174	30.90	31.13	0.74%	9.11%
8	Toyota	TM	NYSE	9,170	124.34	128.32	3.20%	9.49%
9	Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	NYSE	9,060	142.98	140.12	-2.00%	21.62%
10	Novartis	NVS	NYSE	7,870	84.86	82.95	-2.25%	13.88%
11	General Motors	GM	NYSE	7,468	40.95	42.02	2.61%	20.61%
12	Pfizer	PFE	NYSE	7,288	37.20	36.14	-2.84%	11.27%
13	Bristol-Myers Squibb	BMY	NYSE	6,942	62.41	60.96	-2.32%	4.31%
14	Cisco	CSCO	NASDAQ	6,827	38.19	38.55	0.94%	27.56%
15	Qualcomm	QCOM	NASDAQ	6,723	64.76	64.73	-0.05%	-0.72%
16	Oracle	ORCL	NYSE	6,702	48.30	47.36	-1.95%	23.17%
17	Honda	HMC	NYSE	6,519	33.68	34.30	1.84%	17.51%
18	Astra Zeneca PLC	AZN	NYSE	6,363	33.13	33.61	1.45%	23.02%
19	Merck & Co.	MRK	NYSE	5,759	56.24	56.36	0.21%	-4.26%
20	Daimler	DDAIY	OTC	5,084	71.01	71.31	0.42%	0.83%
21	Bayer AG	BAYN	XETRA	4,880	106.50	105.45	-0.99%	6.38%
22	Sanofi SA	SNY	NYSE	4,755	43.17	42.95	-0.51%	6.21%
23	IBM	IBM	NYSE	4,628	152.50	152.50	0.00%	-8.13%
24	GlaxoSmithKline	GSK	NYSE	4,508	34.99	35.13	0.40%	-8.78%
25	Eli Lilly Co	LLY	NYSE	4,489	86.54	85.07	-1.70%	15.66%
	Total			209,080	3,887.10	3,873.98	-0.34%	29.90%
			Biopharmaceutical		718.92	709.87	-1.26%	10.00%
			Automotive		309.93	316.53	2.13%	12.79%
			ICT		1,679.11	1,679.22	0.01%	28.52%

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.