Biogen is a biotech company that develops, manufactures, and sells therapies for treating neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. The company is the market leader in MS drugs and launched the first approved treatments for spinal muscular atrophy and AD. The company also sells products that treat plaque psoriasis, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, lymphocytic leukemia, and rheumatoid arthritis. Current research continues on MS and has expanded to include neuroimmunology, ophthalmology, lupus, and other neuromuscular and movement disorders. Founded in 1978, the company is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, employs 7,605 people, and is a component of the S&P 500.

Stocks are comfortably in the green at midday on Friday, led by a strong jobs report and earnings reports that are often ahead of expectations. Guidance on the impact (or not) of tariffs remains the wild card. On the jobs front, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. economy generated 177,000 nonfarm jobs in April, above our near-consensus forecast of 130,000. March's payrolls were revised lower by 43,000 and February by 15,000. The April result and the revisions to past results raised the three-month average to 155,000 from 152,000. Nonfarm payrolls are one of the indicators that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) says it watches closely in assessing whether the U.S. is in a recession.

Newmont is the world's largest gold miner. It bought Goldcorp in 2019, combined its Nevada mines in a joint venture with competitor Barrick later that year, and also purchased competitor Newcrest in November 2023. Its portfolio includes 17 wholly or majority owned mines and interests in two joint ventures in the Americas, Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea. The company is expected to sell roughly 5.6 million ounces of gold in 2025 from its core mines after selling six higher-cost, smaller mines. Newmont also produces material amounts of copper, silver, zinc, and lead as byproducts. It had about two decades of gold reserves along with significant byproduct reserves at the end of December 2024.

Occidental Petroleum is an independent exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East. At the end of 2023, the company reported net proved reserves of nearly 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Net production averaged 1,327 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2024 at a ratio of roughly 50% oil and natural gas liquids and 50% natural gas.