Catch up on the weekend’s top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter that, “Model Y unveil event on March 14 at LA Design Studio… Model Y, being an SUV, is about 10% bigger than Model 3, so will cost about 10% more & have slightly less range for same battery… Detailed specs & pricing will be provided, as well as test rides in Y.” 2. China and the U.S. are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not all, sanctions levied against Chinese products since last year, The Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei and Bob Davis reported. While hurdles remain, the talks have progressed to the extent that a formal agreement could be reached at a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, probably around March 27, the publication added, citing people familiar with the matter. 3. Big Pharma has been struggling for years to produce drugs that are major breakthroughs in medicine and gene therapy may be “the promise land,” offering potential for hundreds of genetic diseases, Andrew Bary wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. That promise, and its rich commercial potential, has led to a land grab among the drug giants, with the latest being Roche (RHHBY), which agreed to pay $4.8B for Spark Therapeutics (ONCE), following last year’s acquisition of AveXis by Novartis (NVS), the report noted. Six publicly traded gene therapy-focused biotechs, and two whose treatments include gene therapy, offer investors a way to bet on the new genetic technology, namely as uniQure (QURE), Regenxbio (RGNX), Audentes Therapeutics (BOLD), Solid Biosciences (SLDB), MeiraGTx Holdings (MGTX), Voyager Therapeutics (VYGR), Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT), the publication added. 4. Comcast (CMCSA; CMCSK) subsidiary Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” won the weekend box office with another $30M in its second weekend for a domestic total of $97.9M. Overseas, the movie earned $52M from 61 markets for a foreign cume of $277.7M and $375.4M globally. The sequel sports an audience grade of A and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. AbbVie (ABBV), Broadcom (AVGO), SL Green Realty (SLG), Regions Financial (RF), Philips 66 (PSX), Marathon Petroleum (MPC), T. Rowe Price (TROW), PNC Financial (PNC), JPMorgan (JPM), Comerica (CMA), Gap (GPS), Lumentum’s (LITE), and Ferrari (RACE) saw positive mentions in Barron’s, while Kraft Heinz (KHC) and L Brands (LB) were mentioned cautiously.
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