As of today, it has infected fifteen million people and killed over six hundred thousand.As a trader, it’s difficult to wrap your head around because technical analysis alone cannot accurately predict market behavior during conditions like we are currently experiencing.

Applied DNA Sciences  got an authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency clinical use of its covid-19 test, Linea.  "This extraordinary achievement highlights the company’s commitment to combating the covid-19 pandemic both locally and nationwide," Chief Executive James Hayward said in a statement. The machine that performs  the test can process 94 samples per hour and more than 2,000 tests per day. The FDA has authorized emergency use for about 50 molecular tests that can detect COVID-19  

Pluralsight’s second-quarter billings came in lower than expected, while the company issued guidance below analysts’ forecasts. The online tech education company reported second-quarter loss of -30 cents a share, wider than the year-ago quarter’s loss of -19 cents a share.Adjusted losses came in at -6 cents a share,  compared to analysts’ expectations of adjusted earnings of 14 cents a share. Revenue grew to $75.9 million, from $53.6 million in the year-ago period, and was higher than analysts’ estimate of $73.8 million.  But Pluralsight’s second-quarter billings of $80.6 million came in below the expected $89.1 million. For the third quarter, Pluralsight has projected revenue of $79.5 million to $80 million  - a range lower than the $82.6 million forecasted by analysts. The company expects third-quarter adjusted loss per share of -13 cents to -15 cents per share, compared to the consensus estimate of an -11 cent loss.

BlackRock Inc.’s second-quarter earnings fell short of analysts’ estimates. The global investment management company’s  earnings per share came in at $6.41, lower than the $6.50 average estimate of Wall Street analysts surveyed by FactSet.  While net income declined more than -7% year-over-year to $1 billion in the quarter, revenue decreased by -2% to $3.52 billion - on lower performance fees. The company also experienced declining securities-lending revenue. However, BlackRock indicated that rising investor demand for the company's bond mutual funds helped to increase assets under management by 5% during the quarter to $6.84 trillion. 

Blackstone experienced a step decline in profits in its latest quarter, but exceeded analysts’ estimates of distributable earnings. The  private equity and financial services company reported net income per share on a diluted basis of 45 cents for the second quarter, down -59% from a year ago (based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)). Increased earnings from the sale of assets in Blackstone’s private equity, credit and fund-of-hedge-funds divisions was offset by a decline in proceeds from divestments in its real estate unit. Nevertheless, the company’s distributable earnings – which represents cash available for paying dividends – came in at 57 cents per share, beating analysts’ expectations of 49 cents (based on Refinitiv data). According to Blackstone, its assets under management surged to a record $545.5 billion in the three months through June, compared to the year-ago quarter’s $511.8 billion. Blackstone said that the value of its private equity por

TD’s latest offering spans 21 providers/fund managers covering around 90 Morningstar categories. An ETF (or exchange-traded fund) is an investment fund (a basket of securities) that tracks a particular index.ETFs are often regarded as relatively passive and lower-cost compared to several funds that involve picking individual securities. The move, according to TD, gives more than 7,000 registered investment advisors (RIAs) and TD Ameritrade’s 11 million individual investor client accounts access to “one of the largest and most diverse selections of non-proprietary, commission-free ETFs in the industry.” Last year, Vanguard Group announced commission-free online trading in almost 1,800 of its competitors' ETFs in addition to 77 of its own

California-based Franklin Resources Inc. recently confirmed in a staff memo that the company is looking at reducing as much as 5% of its workforce in an effort to save at least $75 million in employee cost as the fund manager faces continued outflows and economic uncertainty.  However, the company will not be firing its employees directly, but will give them buyout offers eligible for employees who are older than 50 years and with an industry experience of more than 10 years.

Saudi Aramco has received bids for more than 10 times the $10 billion it was expected to raise in a debut international bond issue, with the world’s largest oil producer due to set the price of its bonds later on Tuesday. Read More...

Blucora shares surged nearly +20% Tuesday, after the tech-enabled tax management & financial services company announced that it will spend $100 million on share buybacks, and that it plans to acquire tax-focused wealth management company 1st Global. Chief Financial Officer Davinder Athwal  said that Blucora is focused on debt reduction and investments towards achieving long-term organic growth.He indicated that the $100 million share repurchase program would be an additional tool to deliver value to shareholders, and is a part of the company’s cash redeployment strategy. 

There will not be a recession this year despite a slowdown in economic activity worldwide, a top executive at Carlyle Group told CNBC Wednesday.READ MORE...

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) recently confirmed that it has entered into a $4 billion midstream pipeline infrastructure deal with investing giants, BlackRock (BLK) and KKR (KKR), making the investment first of its kind in the Middle East. ADNOC has been long contemplating to diversify revenue sources and bring private capital and more commercial management into the company.The said partnership is a landmark move in midstream pipeline infrastructure development for ADNOC. The new entity will be called ADNOC Oil Pipelines that will lease the oil company’s interest in 18 pipelines, transporting crude oil and condensates across its upstream concessions for a 23-year period. 60% of the stake will be held by ADNOC, with the remaining 40% to be collectively held by a consortium of funds managed by two U.S. firms. In the last couple of months, ADNOC has also signed agreements with other international gas and oil companies like Italy’s ENI and Austrian OMV in order to step up

Global investment firm KKR & Co and General Atlantic LLC are reportedly exploring a potential investment in Flipkart’s digital payments arm, PhonePe Pvt.With investors like Tiger Global and Tencent already showing interest in PhonePe, the payments business has emerged as an integral part of Flipkart’s overall strategy. The booming market of digital payments, as well as the rise of start-ups in India, are key factors behind such lofty valuations.

BlackRock Inc., the world's largest asset manager, is cutting 3% of its global workforce.About 500 people will lose their jobs in the coming few weeks, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg.  “Market uncertainty is growing, investor preferences are evolving and the ecosystem in which we operate is becoming increasingly complex,” Rob Kapito, BlackRock’s president, said in the memo. The firm is seeking to “move decisively to refocus our resources where the impact will be greatest” and to operate more efficiently, Kapito wrote.

State Street Corp. is curing 15% of its senior management, according to a report in Bloomberg. Those affected include executive vice-presidents and senior VPs. Ronald O’Hanley, who took over this month as CEO of the money-management and custody-banking giant, wants to reduce expenses, automate more functions and simplify the organizational structure.State Street needs to “structurally compress” upper management, he was reported as saying last month at a Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference in New York.

According to a report published by Reuters, private equity firm Blackstone Group LP is priming for an initial public offering (IPO) of Alight Solutions LLC, a U.S. provider of healthcare and retirement benefits services.Alight Solutions is expected to be valued at more than $7 billion, including debt. The IPO is expected to hit markets in the first half of 2019, almost two years after Blackstone’s acquisition of Alight for ~$4.8 billion from the insurance broker Aon Plc (AON).

Private equity firm KKR & Co., Inc. and some other companies invested a total $1.25 billion in video game developer firm Epic Games. Epic Games, whose game 'Fortnite' gained roaring popularity, is valued at $15 billion as part of the new funding round (The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter).Along with KKR, Iconiq Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture partners are the newest prominent names backing the gaming company. In 2012, Tencent acquired 40% of Epic’s equity for $330 million.

Blackstone Group LP ’s new infrastructure fund allows Saudi Arabia to invest at a discount.What it gets in return is massive funding from the kingdom. For every dollar that an investor pays Blackstone to manage its cash, Saudi Arabia gets to pay 15 cents less.

This comes after U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken said the investors could sue the company as a group. In their lawsuit, shareholders accused the hedge fund/asset management firm of misleading investors by concealing the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probes into the company’s potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.The lawsuit, filed in 2014, covers investors who owned Och-Ziff shares from February 2012 to April 2014.  Och-Ziff ‘s settlement against its shareholders’ lawsuit  follows the company’s $412 million settlement in Sept. 2016 for the U.S. Department of Justice criminal probe.    

The multinational private equity company is aiming distressed properties globally to invest in with this fund, according to people familiar wih the plans (as reported by Bloomberg).An earlier fund  for similar assets gathered $15.8 billion in 2015 for the company. There is an growing trend among institutional  investors (such as public pension plans and insurance companies)  to allocate relatively large amounts among real estate assets, according to a Bloomberg article.