Raphael Stevens

A robot cat named Sox from the Pixar film “Lightyear” was a standout during a preview of the film during CinemaCon, leading many observers to believe it will be the next hot toy property.
Disney has had significant success in turning sidekicks into bestselling toys. Grogu from “The Mandalorian” and Olaf from “Frozen” have dominated toy shelves, apparel lines and housewares.
The entertainment and character sector generated global sales of $128.4 billion in 2019 — about 44% of all licensed merchandise.

Peter Sohn voices Sox, Buzz Lightyear’s robotic cat companion, Pixar’s animated film “Lightyear.”

Disney screened the first 30 minutes of its new Pixar film “Lightyear” at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Wednesday, but the biggest buzz among attendees wasn’t for the title character at the center of the “Toy Story” origin story.
That distinction went to a small robotic cat named Sox.

The ginger and white mechanical feline is a personal companion presented as a gift to Buzz Lightyear after a mission goes awry. A therapy device, of sorts, Sox is designed to do anything Buzz requires, including monitoring his mental health and providing nightly sleep sounds.
General audiences got a tease of Sox in early trailers for “Lightyear,” which hits theaters June 17. But the prolonged exposure CinemaCon participants got to the little robotic cat solidified the consensus that it is destined to be the next hot toy.
Like many of Disney’s and Pixar’s animal and robotic companions, Sox has a distinct personality and adds moments of levity during times of peril. During the preview at CinemaCon, his reactions were the ones that elicited the most raucous laughter from the crowd.
“Sox the cat is gonna steal the entire movie,” wrote Fandango’s managing editor Erik Davis on Twitter following the preview. “Disney is gonna sell so many Sox the cat toys.”
Sox, which is voiced by Pixar veteran Peter Sohn, has a dry sense of humor and blunt vocal delivery that is reminiscent of “Rogue One’s” K-2SO and an innocence and caring nature like Baymax from “Big Hero 6.” He’s also got a data probe in his tail a la R2-D2 that comes in handy when Buzz finds himself in a pickle.

Audiences leaving Caesar’s Palace’s Colosseum after the Disney presentation could be heard gushing about the new character. In meetings later in the week, exhibitors and box office analysts told CNBC that Sox was a clear standout in the much-anticipated animated feature, with many imitating the cat or reciting his lines seen in the footage.
“No spoilers. Just know that everyone will want a [Sox] toy as soon as this film comes out,” tweeted John Rocha, a film reviewer for The Outlaw Nation, an outlet that offers diverse perspectives on the world of entertainment. “So start buying them right now or as soon as they become available.”
Disney has had significant success in turning sidekicks into major toy sellers. In recent years Grogu from “The Mandalorian” and Olaf from “Frozen” have dominated toy shelves, apparel lines and housewares. Legacy characters like R2-D2 from “Star Wars” and Mushu from “Mulan” continue to sell.
“I reviewed a list of the 50 top movie characters and 17 of them were animals, 24 were human or human-like, and nine were an assortment of monsters and robots,” said Richard Gottlieb, CEO of Global Toy Experts. “It interested me that being cute and fuzzy alone is not a guarantor of success. The character, whether an animal or a monster, has to be relatable as human.”
Mattel, which holds the master toy license for the Toy Story franchise, has created several plush and action figure versions of Sox, but its hero item for the toy line is an $80 animatronic interactive version of the character.
“Sox has been top of mind from the initial moment we saw the ‘Lightyear’ film,” said PJ Lewis, executive lead for Mattel’s action figure and plush division. “We knew he was much more than a sidekick and offered multiple ways to drive product innovation for the ‘Lightyear’ line. Plus, we have a few cat people on the team who were smitten.”
In addition to Mattel’s product, Sox can be found in the toy aisle as a Funko Pop and a Lego figurine as well as in the candy aisle as a Pez dispenser.
Studios and toy companies are keenly aware of how consumers of various ages can quickly embrace characters from movies and television. When these characters prove successful in the toy and apparel market, they are often transitioned into houseware items like tea towels, spatulas and plates, as well as other products like jewelry, bandages, greeting cards and pet toys.
It’s a lucrative business. Global sales revenue generated by licensed merchandise reached nearly $300 billion in 2019, according to data from Licensing International’s annual overview of the industry, conducted by Brandar Consulting. The entertainment and character sector accounts for $128.4 billion, or about 44% of global sales.
And Sox is well positioned to become the next hot toy that drives revenue to Disney, said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
“A star was born at CinemaCon this week,” he said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Fandango.

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Ukraine’s defense against Russia is being supported by billions of dollars in military aid from NATO countries. One of the most capable and expensive weapon systems supplied is the FGM-148 Javelin, a U.S.-made anti-armor weapon that costs about $176,000 each.”We don’t know where and when the next kinetic war will be, and producing new weapons, surging production lines takes time,” said Cynthia Cook, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This may be a time where we might want to think about how we invest in increasing the inventory of precision-guided weapons and other weapons and missiles.”
Although the Javelin has been lauded by the Ukrainian government, the actual effectiveness of the weapon system remains hard to independently verify outside of anecdotal accounts from the battlefield.

“We don’t have folks on the ground, and I think that is a policy decision that we should reconsider,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Waltz, R-Fla., a former U.S. Army Green Beret. “We could help them be actually more effective if we had advisors alongside, but we’d have to do that in very small numbers very selectively, and very quietly.”
Watch the video above to find out what the Javelin is, how it it used and what it will take for the U.S. to produce more of them.

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Despite the pandemic, more than 7 in 10 workers say they are at least “somewhat confident” about retirement, and 8 in 10 retirees feel they’ll have enough to cover their golden years, a survey finds.
However, inflation and the rising cost of living are the top concern among workers and retirees feeling less assured.
While most retirees’ spending is as expected, 1 in 3 said their costs are higher than planned.

Ipggutenbergukltd | Istock | Getty Images

Despite the pandemic, most Americans still feel optimistic about a comfortable retirement, but inflation is the top concern among those who aren’t as prepared.
That’s according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald Research 32nd annual Retirement Confidence Survey polling 2,677 workers and retirees in January.

“Even with the concerns of the pandemic and rising prices, overall, American workers and retirees still feel positive about their retirements,” said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI.
More from Personal Finance:Most adults’ financial priority is nonretirement savings, survey showsHere’s a simple way to see how inflation erodes your long-term savingsHigh inflation may prompt people to change their summer vacation plans
The 2022 findings remain steady compared to 2021, with more than 7 in 10 workers reporting they are at least “somewhat confident” about retirement savings, including nearly one-third who feel “very confident.”
Some 8 in 10 retirees believe they’ll have enough money to live comfortably through their golden years, according to the survey. But the pandemic dimmed optimism for one-third of workers and one-quarter of retirees. 
“The Americans who are more likely to feel that their futures appear grim since the pandemic are those who were already pessimistic about their futures, due to lower incomes, problems with debt or lower health status,” said Copeland.

A strong majority of retirees still feel their retirement lifestyle and spending are on track.

Lisa Greenwald
CEO of Greenwald Research

Unsurprisingly, inflation and rising expenses are the top concern among workers and retirees feeling less confident about retirement.
When asked an open question about the specific reason for waning retirement confidence, one-half cited inflation and the rising cost of living, said Lisa Greenwald, CEO of Greenwald Research.
Annual inflation has crept higher since the survey in January, rising to 8.5% in March, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, affecting the price of everyday expenses like groceries, gasoline and housing.
However, spending changes in retirement may lessen the sting of some rising costs, J.P. Morgan’s 2022 Guide to Retirement found. Excluding health care, retirees may spend less on other costs, such as food and fuel.

While the Retirement Confidence Survey showed most retirees’ spending was as planned, 1 in 3 said they shelled out more than expected, up from one-fourth in 2021, the survey revealed. 
“This could reflect increased use and desire for travel and leisure as the pandemic lulls,” said Greenwald. “It can also reflect inflation and the increased cost of travel and entertainment for some.
“While it is hard to know which reason is driving the higher expenses, a strong majority of retirees still feel their retirement lifestyle and spending are on track,” she added. 
 

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The Federal Aviation Administration for a fourth time delayed its environmental review of SpaceX’s Starship rocket program in Texas.
The FAA now expects to release the assessment May 31.
SpaceX needs a license from the FAA to conduct further Starship flight tests and begin operational launches from its private facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Michael Sheetz | CNBC

The Federal Aviation Administration for a fourth time delayed its environmental review of SpaceX’s Starship rocket program in Texas, pushing a decision to the end of May.
SpaceX needs a license from the FAA to conduct further Starship flight tests and begin operational launches from its private facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The FAA, which began its environmental review in November 2020, delayed making a decision three previous times in the past five months – from Dec. 31 to Feb. 28. to Mar. 28 to Apr. 29 – and now expects to release the assessment on May 31.

“The FAA is working toward issuing the final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) … SpaceX made multiple changes to its application that require additional FAA analysis. The agency continues to review around 18,000 general public comments,” the regulator said in a statement.
Starship is the nearly 400-foot tall, reusable rocket that SpaceX has been developing, with the goal of creating a vehicle that can carry cargo and groups of people beyond Earth. The rocket and its Super Heavy booster are powered by SpaceX’s Raptor series of engines.

SpaceX has completed multiple high-altitude flight tests with Starship prototypes, but its next major step is to reach space. While that milestone was expected to be reached last year, development progress has been delayed. The orbital flight test is also pending regulatory approval.
In February, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a presentation on Starship at the company’s Starbase facility in Texas, outlining the path forward and obstacles for the rocket’s testing.
At the time, Musk said that SpaceX had a “rough indication that there may ben approval in March.” But, in lockstep with the FAA’s delays, Musk since said he hoped SpaceX would be able to launch the first Starship orbital flight in May – which, following Friday’s FAA update, is now pushed to no earlier than June.

One consideration for Musk and SpaceX is what the company would do with its Starship development program if the FAA decides a more in-depth assessment is required. In that scenario, which would likely mean a launch hiatus from Starbase for additional years, Musk has said that moving Starship operations to Florida’s Cape Canaveral would be the most likely alternative. Already, SpaceX has begun building a launchpad for Starship on the grounds of Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which SpaceX leases from the agency.
“Worst-case scenario is that we would … be delayed for six to eight months to build up the Cape launch tower and launch [Starship] from there,” Musk said in February.
The regulator’s continuing review represents another item on Musk’s diverse plate of projects, with the billionaire this week selling more than $8 billion worth of Tesla stock as he works to take Twitter private.

Prototypes of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster stand at the company’s Starbase facility in Texas.
Michael Sheetz | CNBC

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The FDA committee will review Novavax’s vaccine for adults ages 18 and over on June 7.
The FDA has selected three possible dates – June 8, 21 and 22 – to discuss Moderna and Pfizer’s shots for children under age 5 who are not yet eligible for vaccination.
The meetings are a sign that the vaccines are moving closer to a possible authorization.

Medical syringes and Novavax logo displayed in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 2, 2021.
Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration’s independent advisors will meet in June to discuss Novavax’s Covid vaccine for adults as well as Pfizer and Moderna’s shots for younger kids, a sign that the vaccines are moving a step closer to authorization.
The FDA committee will review Novavax’s vaccine for adults ages 18 and over on June 7. The FDA has selected three possible dates – June 8, 21 and 22 – to discuss Moderna and Pfizer’s shots for children under age 5 who are not yet eligible for vaccination. The drug regulator, in a press release Friday, said the dates are tentative because none of the companies have completed their submissions.

The FDA committee will also meet on June 28 to discuss whether the current Covid vaccines need to be redesigned to target mutations of the virus. FDA officials have said the U.S. needs to rapidly make a decision about whether the shots should be changed to have them ready ahead of a possible fall wave of infection. Pfizer and Moderna are both studying shots that target the omicron variant as well as the original strain that emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019.
The FDA panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, holds meetings open to the public where independent physicians and scientists discuss the data supporting a company’s vaccine. The panel then makes recommendations to the FDA about whether the vaccine should receive authorization. The FDA is not bound to follow the committee’s recommendations, though it usually does.
The FDA committee’s busy June schedule comes a day after Moderna asked the drug regulator to authorize its two-dose Covid vaccine for children six months to 5-years-old. Parents have been waiting months for the FDA to clear a vaccine for this age group.
The FDA had sought to fast track the first two doses of Pfizer’s three-shot vaccine for kids under age 5 in February, but the company decided to postpone its application because the data wasn’t good enough. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has said a third shot should provide much higher protection against omicron.
During the winter omicron wave, children under age 5 were hospitalized with Covid at five times the rate of the peak when the delta variant was predominant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75% of children in the U.S. have been infected by the virus at some point during the pandemic, according to data from national blood sample survey from the CDC.

Some Americans have also been waiting for the authorization of Novavax’s vaccine. If authorized by the FDA, Novavax’s shot will be the first new Covid vaccine to hit the market in more than a year.
Novavax was an early participant in Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s race to develop a vaccine against Covid in 2020. However, Moderna and Pfizer ultimately beat Novavax to the punch because the company struggled with manufacturing issues.
Novavax’s vaccine uses different technology than Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots, which rely on messenger RNA to turn human cells into factories that produce copies of the virus spike protein, inducing an immune response that fights Covid. The spike is the part of the virus that latches onto and invades human cells.
Novavax produces the virus spike outside the human body. The genetic code for the spike is put into a baculovirus that infects insect cells, which then produce copies of the spike that are purified and extracted for the shots. The vaccine also uses an adjuvant, an extract purified from the bark of a tree in South America, to induce a broader immune response.
While mRNA vaccines were first authorized during the pandemic, the protein technology that underlies Novavax’s shots has been used in past vaccines. Novavax’s adjuvant has been used in licensed vaccines against malaria and shingles.
Novavax has said some people who are hesitant to take mRNA vaccines might be more willing to use its shots.

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CNBC CFO Council

Across earnings this week, write-downs of formerly high-flying stocks were present, notably in the cases of Amazon and Ford devaluing stakes in electric vehicle maker Rivian.
Tech giants Google and Microsoft also cited some equity bets that lost value.
But Teladoc, the telehealth leader which boomed during the pandemic and completed the largest digital health deal ever, an $18 billion acquisition of chronic care company Livongo, devalued that business by $6 billion, more than Teladoc’s current market cap.

A Teladoc rolling telehealth cart that allows physicians to meet with their patients remotely, on October 8, 2021.
Newsday Llc | Newsday | Getty Images

This week’s earnings details have included some big-name reckonings with the value of high-growth, high-tech — and high-risk — companies. Ford and Amazon writing down stakes in electric vehicle maker Rivian; Alphabet and Microsoft noting some equity bets that declined in value. But the valuation hit that was the biggest, and in it own microcosmic way, may speak loudest about the past decade of valuation gains in technology start-ups that has drawn comparison to the dotcom bubble, comes from the health-care sector.
Health care was a marquee trade of the pandemic market. This may seem obvious: a world reckoning with a global medical crisis bringing economies to a standstill should awaken to the need for more health-care investment. There were big winners whose business was directly tied to the risk of pandemic, and whose investors proved the value of their forethought: namely, Moderna Therapeutics. But at a broader stock market level, the digital health trade was in the category of stay-at-home stocks that booked huge gains, as telehealth boomed, with patients required to seek care virtually and as the adoption of digital services across sectors went through years of evolution in a period of months.

This theme is now looking tenuous, and business models these disruptors plan to use to turn pandemic plays into long-term health-care winners less certain. Much of technology has been pummeled since last fall, from enterprise cloud to biotech and fintech, but this week’s disastrous earnings from telehealth leader Teladoc marked the lowest point for the health-care version of this recent tech bubble trade. After booking a more than $6 billion charge related to its acquisition of chronic care company Livongo, Teladoc shares cratered and are now down more than 80% from a year ago. Its 40% dive on Thursday brought into stark relief what’s been a yearlong train wreck for the digital health public valuations: competitors AmWell and 1Life Healthcare down more than 80% in the past year, and consumer health care company Him and Hers Health down more than 60%.
Among AmWell’s investors was Google, which put $100 million into the company in 2020.
The $6.6 billion impairment charge is excluded from earnings metrics, but it is a big hit that relates directly to how Teladoc planned to make its stay-at-home trade bridge to a post-pandemic business. Teladoc bought Livongo for $18.5 billion in cash and stock in late 2020 in the biggest digital health deal to date.
To put into perspective how bad the $6.6 billion impairment charge is: after Thursday’s stock decline, it was larger than Teladoc’s market cap.
CNBC’s Bob Pisani pointed to an ominous market parallel: AOL-Time Warner. Within a year of that deal, the combined company’s biggest headlines weren’t about synergies but about “goodwill impairments” as the value of the original dotcom bubble deal milestone, AOL, plummeted.

The AOL-Time Warner write-downs were multiple magnitudes the size of Teladoc (before and after its crash). But the collateral damage from the Teladoc disaster reaches across the recent disruptive investment era and one of its star stock pickers: ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, who was among the only funds that invested in the “falling knife” of Teladoc earlier this year, and had grown to be its largest shareholder. It was the third largest holding in her biggest fund after Tesla and another stay-at-home play: Zoom Video Communications.

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Wood’s fund is undeterred, buying more Teladoc on Thursday. But in a sign of just how much has come off the disruptive trading theme, her flagship ARK Innovation Fund has now suffered a fate familiar to the vast majority of investment management peers, even those that get off to a hot start: it is no longer ahead of the S&P 500 in performance since its inception. For any investor who lived through the dotcom bubble and is old enough, or had parents old enough, to be sold on the need to branch out from core equity into sector fund bets on health sciences, telecom and tech funds, the lessons should have been learned long ago.
The big issue for Teladoc isn’t merely whether it and Livongo and others are merely in for a period of reset valuations before moving higher again, but whether cracks in the foundation of its business model have been exposed as the pandemic euphoria erodes. Wall Street, which bailed on the stock on Thursday morning, is concerned, with one analyst writing about the “cracks in TDOC’s whole health foundation as increased competitive intensity is weighing on growth and margins.”
And Wall Street notes those cracks are occurring in just the areas where Teladoc was planning to grow beyond the commoditized core telehealth service, into direct-to-consumer mental health and Livongo’s chronic care space, expected growth drivers for the next three years.
“While we are reticent to make sweeping changes to our thesis based off of one poor quarter, we are doubtful that we will see the competition-driven headwinds abate anytime soon,” one analyst who downgraded the stock wrote.
A focus by employers on wellness was viewed as a tailwind for this sector, but there are now growing doubts about just how much corporate buyers will pay for these services. Sales cycles are getting pushed out and employers paying very high wages and dealing with workforce shortages are reassessing their expenses. “HR departments are getting squeezed because there’s so much going on with respect to return to office, dealing with the Great Resignation and all of the hiring and allocating resources to talent acquisition and retention,” Teladoc CEO CEO Jason Gorevic said.
The write-downs in Rivian stakes this week speak to what seemed logical enough in bubble talk after investors piled into the EV stock. Valuation gains often reflect one element of what makes a bubble: an imbalance between the supply of a particular investment desire and demand, and market bubbles form when too much money is put to work in a particular area that is short on supply. Rivian was one of the only public market options to bet on EVs other than Tesla.
But in digital health-care, it’s the players and not just the trade that has gotten crowded, a point Teladoc alluded to in its earnings. “We’re seeing clients inundated with a number of new smaller point solutions, which has created noise in the marketplace,” Gorevic said.
This is why companies like Teladoc had been actively seeking to scale up, and across services, in M&A like the Livongo deal. Castlight Health merged with Vera Whole Health. Virgin Pulse tied up with Welltok. Accolade bought PlushCare. Grand Rounds and Doctors on Demand merged. They also face the monster threat of Amazon, which this year began rolling out its health service to corporate plans nationally. Highly valued digital health companies tying up may have led to valuations getting well ahead of the proof the deals will work in a market being pressured on all sides.
Gorevic told Wall Street analysts that he is convinced that Teladoc’s “whole-person” strategy is the right one, and it may just take longer to see the pipeline turn into sales, and more deals may come through insurance partners rather than direct corporate buys. Teladoc is, no doubt, a leader in its market. But its CEO also conceded, “it’s still sort of on the verge of being finished with the integration, we don’t have the proof points behind it. So people are waiting and anxious to see and the early adopters are buying, but we haven’t yet hit the bulk of the market.”
Or in other words, the test results are not back in from the lab yet. Investors, unlike patients, don’t need to wait. 
—CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report. More