GSK Up, Mercedes Soars, Equinor Slips

On this episode of Stock Movers:
- GSK raised its profit and sales forecasts for the year, aided by its HIV and immunology medicines, in Emma Walmsley’s last report as CEO.
- Mercedes-Benz Group confirmed its annual outlook and plans to proceed with a €2 billion share buyback after the company’s margin climbed in 3Q.
- Equinor said 3Q earnings slumped as oil prices softened and trading profits declined, its adjusted operating income after tax fell by about a quarter to $1.51 billion, missing the average analyst estimate.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Let's take a look at some of the stocks on
the move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll with Lizzie
Burdon and were joined by Bloomberg reporter Chloe Male. Chloe,
good morning. Let's start with Pharmaceuticals and GSK raising its
profit and sales Outlook, what's driving that?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well? Yeah, so they upgraded that guidance by quite a
large margin, and also the quarterly EPs be expectations by
a long shot. A lot of that was due to sales,
really strong sales of HIV and immunology medicines. In particular,
vaccines actually ordered it better than expected, despite some pharmaceutical
rival saying that there was a lower vaccination raised specifically

(00:51):
in the US that were weighing a little bit down
BEFAU FORJSK, seems that that division is still doing quite well.
This was the last quarter of Emma Warmsley reporting as CEO,
and this is obviously quite a strong set of results
to go out on, so I'm sure that she's pretty
pleased by it. There's new CEO, Luke Mills, will be
coming in January, and although he has picking up a

(01:11):
company with very strong growth, there's a few challenges going ahead,
so there's a lot of There's been a lot of
investor pressure to update the pipeline of new benefits for
GSK because a lot of its top sellers, specifically in HIV,
are facing generic competition. And also GSK hasn't managed to
strike a deal with the Trump administration on tariff relief
like AstraZeneca has managed to do. So there's a couple

(01:34):
of things that the new CEO will have to focus
on when he comes in. But so far today, at least,
it seems that investors are reassured from this set of results,
and they seem quite convinced that GSK can deliver the
forty pounds in cells that it is targeting by twenty
thirty one.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
We've also got to talk about Mercedes. It's one of
the best performing stocks this morning, confident that it's cash
generation will be strong ahead. Chloe, what are we looking
out for on the back of the carmaker's earnings.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, so it's not super often that we get a
really positive update like this from a European a carmaker.
But Mercedes, as you said, is moving much higher this
morning after confirming its outlook and announcing a two billion
euroshare buyback. So as you mentioned, that shows that the
company is confident in that ability to generate cash, and
that's really helped to reassure investors that the worst might
actually be behind for a Mercedes. It's the only major

(02:25):
German automaker that hasn't cut its outlook in recent weeks.
But it's obviously not completely immune to the challenges that
are faced by a portion and BMW and others. So
it's obviously still dealing with the cost of US tariffs,
which obviously is a key market for large SUVs in particular,
and China really is the main concern. So sales in
the country had their worst quarterly performance there since twenty sixteen,

(02:47):
and that's because demon foiluxury cars is falling and cheaper
domestic manufacturers like BOAD are gaining more and more market share.
So it's not out the woods just yet, but that
is somewhat reassuring today's update from Mercedes.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
And shares up five point seven percent at the moment.
Let's go to nor Away now softening energy prices hitting
profits at ecuanor.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, not so good news over the energy sector. So
the third quarter earnings drop because of those weaker oil
prices and also weaker trading profits. So we knew coming
into the earning season that oil majors would face pressure
because oil prices over the third quarter were lower because
of OPEC ramping up those supplies. There's also the fact
that volatility and the energy market calmed down a little

(03:28):
bit as well over to period, which means that there
were fewer opportunities to profit from really large price swings,
which explains those weaker trading profits. So we have also
Shell intert Energies reporting tomorrow, so we'll get a bit
more detail on how much those companies have been hit
by those softer oil prices and whether they've been able
to mitigate that. Of course, the key thing for those

(03:48):
companies is whether they're able to maintain their shareholder distribution,
because the ability to withstand those commodity pressures and keep
up those payouts is really key to their appeal.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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