The Walt Disney Company, Cisco, Pinduoduo, Siemens, Merck KGaA, Applied Materials, Zurich Insurance, National Grid, Hon Hai Precision, KBC Group, Assicurazioni Generali, Bridgestone, Akwel and SII are among companies reporting their results today.

A few results:

  • Assicurazioni Generali: the Italian insurer published rather robust nine-month results, enabling it to confirm its annual forecasts and dividend projections.
  • Burberry: the British luxury group suffered a 25% contraction in half-year sales, slightly less than expected.
  • Deutsche Telekom: the German operator raised its 2020 forecast, thanks to the solid performance of its US subsidiary T-Mobile US.
  • Foxconn: the quarterly results of one of Apple's main suppliers exceeded expectations.
  • KBC Group: the Belgian bank posted a profit of €697m in Q3. Management believes that current reserves are sufficient to meet "current challenges with confidence".
  • Merck KGaA: the German laboratory is aiming for a 2020 adjusted Ebitda of between €5.05 and €5.25 billion, compared to a consensus of €4.87 billion so far.
  • Pirelli: the Italian group published Q3 results slightly above expectations, but is revising its 2020 profitability target downwards.
  • RWE: the energy producer reported a 13% increase in profit after nine months of activity.
  • Siemens: the results of the group's industrial division are quite significantly better than expected.
  • Zurich Insurance: gross premiums are slightly above expectations for the first nine months of the year, but the life insurance business is suffering more than expected. Jefferies considers the results positive.

In other news:

  • Moderna said it has sufficient data to conduct a first interim analysis of the Phase III clinical trial of its vaccine candidate Covid-19. It has seen a significant increase in the rate of positive case identification over the past week at its sites, so  the first interim analysis to include well over 53 cases.
  • By 2039, The Boeing Company forecasts that Chinese carriers will need some 8,600 new aircraft, 6.3% more than the previous forecast of 8,090 aircraft. This could represent 1400 billion dollars according to list prices. This new increase in forecasts takes into account a drop in global deliveries over the next few years due to the pandemic.
  • Nexi and Nets extend their exclusive negotiations for a merger to November 16.
  • Sony releases its PS5, two days after Microsoft's Xbox Series.
  • Some controversy over the sale of shares by Pfizer executives, concomitant to the Covid-19 vaccine announcement. But the operations of the senior executives are planned and are subject to multi-year plans managed by financial intermediaries.
  • U.S. movie theater operator AMC Entertainment was down 11% on the stock market after the announcement of a capital increase, after however having soared 51% on Monday.
  • Alibaba realized 74 billion dollars (!) in sales over 4 days during "Singles' Day", an event that is now more important than the American "Black Friday" in terms of frenzy of purchases.
  • Deutsche Lufthansa signed a new agreement with the Verdi union on a €200 million additional savings plan, with no forced departure in 2021 but with the waiver of Christmas bonuses for 2020 and 2021 and certain vacation bonuses.