By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Let’s take a look at today’s trending tickers. We got Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Intel, and Five Below. We’re also checking on a few other names moving along with them. We want to start with Recursion here. Um this stock has been, uh, near the top of the trending tickers list on Yahoo Finance all day. The company works on biotech AI models, and the stock’s extending its rally for a second day after the FDA said on Thursday it plans to phase out animal testing requirements for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs. So, what does that mean? It means there’s going to be less animal testing. So, other companies like Charles River have been plunging that facilitate that testing. And then there’s speculation that companies that are trying to offer an alternative to that testing by doing AI models, for example, those stocks have been soaring.
01:02 Speaker B
Yeah, I see analysts weighing in. T and RBC, cited as saying these steps towards increased regulatory flexibility, a net positive they say, especially given recent concerns about potential FDA dysfunction, potentially greater stringency. See Barclays, they wait in as well. Talk, taking out pre-clinical animal testing. They talk about a good goal. Question though, here on feasibility and implementation remain, they say.
01:42 Speaker A
Right. And that Charles River plunge is something as well. And analysts are commenting on that. Um, Baird analyst, Eric Coldwell, talking about this, saying the players in this industry likely won’t fully recover when it comes to valuation. He called today’s news, or yesterday’s news, I should say, shock and awe on this front.
02:15 Speaker B
All right, moving on. Let’s check out Intel here, because that stock, along with Texas Instruments, is moving lower today. That’s after the China Semiconductor Industry Association released an urgent notice regarding the criteria for determining the origin of imported chips, which could heighten trade tensions between the two nations. So, you did see some of these chip makers, um, specifically those with manufacturing footprints under some pressure. China, we know, of course, hit back, announced these new tariffs going after semiconductor imports. Uh, the tariff rate raised, we know on all goods to 125%. Those are going to be determined where chips, sounds like, truly are manufacturing, manufactured. So then you did see, no surprise, some of these names under a bit of pressure today, specifically Intel, Texas Instruments. I did see analysts at Baird though, cited as talking about how TI shares, they thought, were overreacting to the news, that its shares in China could erode somewhat, but they were saying it benefits from product performance, product breadth, cost structure, customer service advantages, which would be difficult, they said, for Chinese OEMs to ignore altogether.
03:49 Speaker A
Yeah, I was looking at a note from Jordan Klein, our buddy over at Mizuho, who’s on the desk there and where it’s all about tech stocks every day. And he said, basically, this is bad news for companies that manufacture chips in the US and want to try and export them to China, like an Intel and a Texas Instruments. He said conversely, this could be good news for companies that design their chips, don’t make them here, but make them, in effect, TSM makes their chips for them. So, a Qualcomm, yes, Nvidia, a Qualcomm, an AMD, and indeed those stocks are performing better today.
04:41 Speaker B
Like Jensen Wong, perhaps. Nvidia next up, yeah.
04:48 Speaker A
Our next trending ticker is Five Below. Those shares have been slumping. The retailer asked vendors to turn away products waiting for shipment in China before they set off for the US. This was according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg here. Um, and this was the intermediary here was Muller Myers, which is the shipping giant which sent this note to some of Five Below’s vendors. It’s unclear if it affects all of the vendors or just some of the vendors. But this really gets to the heart of what this tariff ripple effect is going to look like.
05:36 Speaker B
Yeah, China is Five Below’s largest source of merchandise that it imports. Uh, Bloomberg citing Oppenheimer saying tariff increases could pose costs of 90 to 95% for Five Below. And just looking at the chart of this one, it’s just rough. I mean Five Below, we’re down here about 60% now in the past four months there.
06:05 Speaker A
And Josh, you know what this story reminds me of? It’s that, you know, we’ve had this whole debate about how much this is going to push up prices on items in the US, but there’s also a growing chorus that is saying it also could just mean we see COVID-like shortages, where we just don’t have. It’s not that the prices go up, but so you can’t even get the thing that is imported from China. So, that’s something to continue to watch.
06:36 Speaker B
Another dynamic.