“In 1957, Burger King changed the game with the introduction of the Whopper sandwich — an iconic, flame-grilled burger prepared your way (with 1,024 potential combinations, to be exact),” Burger King North America head of marketing communications Zahra Nurani wrote in a statement. “And now, 64 years later, we’re excited to celebrate our beloved burger by offering The Whopper for its original price of 37 cents exclusively to Royal Perks members.”

The throwback deal is only available to Burger King’s Royal Perks members, however, and must be ordered online or on BK’s app.

Rival burger chain McDonald’s
MCD,
+0.10%
recently ran a similar promotion, dishing Egg McMuffins for just 63 cents (rolled back from its modern-day $3.99 price) in November to mark the breakfast sandwich’s 50th birthday. Customers also had to order the marked-down McMuffins through the McDonald’s app in order to take advantage of the deal.

Read more: Why McDonald’s is selling Egg McMuffins for just 63 cents — and how the 50-year-old sandwich revolutionized fast food

See also: Arby’s has the meats — and, now, the vodkas

Burger King’s Royal Perks program is a service that allows customers to gathering points through purchases in order to redeem for menu items. Other chains like McDonald’s, Chipotle
CMG,
-0.92%
and Starbucks
SBUX,
-0.55%
offer similar programs.

Burger King recently partnered with Robinhood Inc.
HOOD,
-9.75%
to give members of its Royal Perks programs a chance to earn cryptocurrency through qualified purchases. Customers could earn bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-3.58%,
ethereum
ETHUSD,
-5.00%
or dogecoin
DOGEUSD,
-4.28%
by spending $5 on the Burger King’s app.

Shares of Restaurant Brands International
QSR,
+0.68%
are down about 7% so far this year, compared to a 7.97% gain for the S&P 500
SPX,
-1.32%
over the same period.

The research, which was published Thursday in The Lancet, assessed booster shots in about 2,900 people in the U.K.

It compared a mix of full and half doses of the vaccines developed by BioNTech SE
BNTX,
+2.01%
and Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
+2.21%,
Novavax Inc.
NVAX,
-0.64%,
and Valneva SE
VALN,
-14.52%,
as well as a full dose of the AstraZeneca
AZN,
-0.86%

AZN,
-0.49%,
CureVac
CVAC,
+0.55%,
Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+1.11%,
and Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
+0.95%
shots.

(The trial was conducted back in June; since then, CureVac scrapped development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Valneva and Novavax are still seeking authorization for their vaccines in the U.K. The other shots have received authorization there.)

The participants in the U.K. clinical trial were all fully vaccinated with either AstraZeneca’s vaccine or Comirnaty, BioNTech and Pfizer’s shot. The study only included people older than 30 years old who have never tested positive for the virus.

In short, nearly all of the vaccines in the study produced an immune response among the participants, though the type of response differed. (The people who were initially immunized with AstraZeneca’s shot did not generate a different immune response with the same shot as a booster.)

According to the SVB Leerink analysts, a full dose of Moderna’s vaccine produced the highest antibody titers. (In both the U.S. and the U.K., Moderna’s booster is authorized as a half dose.) Novavax’s shot was the best tolerated, in terms of side effects. The J&J shot drove up T-cells more than the others—a point of particular interest now that there are concerns that the omicron variant can reduce antibody protection. Comirnaty, the analysts told investors, is the “decathlete” of the group, based on how it generates both antibody and T-cell response. And, finally, as stated, AstraZeneca’s shot doesn’t do very much as a booster among people already immunized with the same vaccine.  

The authors of the study recommended that policymakers and national immunization committees “establish criteria for choosing which booster vaccines to use in their populations.”

The U.S. is not doing this, at least at this time.

Mixing and matching COVID-19 shots has been allowed by the Food and Drug Administration since October. That means, for example, that people who got the single-shot J&J vaccine can choose between a second J&J jab or a booster dose of Comirnaty or Moderna’s vaccine. 

The decision to allow mixing and matching vaccines in the U.S. stems from a preliminary study, also called a preprint, that was conducted by National Institutes of Health. That research found that antibody levels were highest from a Moderna booster, then Pfizer, and then J&J; however, the study wasn’t designed to compare the vaccine combinations.

For Americans seeking guidance about which booster to get, the U.S. has stopped short of telling people what is the best booster based on their primary vaccination series and is instead encouraging people to sign up for whatever shot they choose.

“We will not articulate a preference,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Oct. 22. “My understanding is that most people will have done largely well with the initial vaccine that they got and may express a preference, very much, for the original vaccine series they got…There may be some people who might prefer another vaccine over the one that they received, and the current CDC recommendations now make that possible.”

That said, federal health officials in the U.S. continue to urge people who were vaccinated before June to get a booster shot.

“There’s every reason to believe that if you get vaccinated and boosted that you would have at least some degree of cross protection, very likely against severe disease, even against the omicron variant,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said during a press briefing on Friday.

Read more of MarketWatch’s coverage about COVID-19 boosters:

People who got J&J’s COVID-19 shot can get a booster. Which one should they get?

Here’s why COVID-19 booster shots are good for business

Allowing people to mix COVID-19 vaccines could cut into Pfizer and Moderna’s revenue next year

Peloton was viewed as a hot COVID-19-pandemic play last year, with the stock rocketing more than fivefold (up 434%), as gym closures fueled an explosion in the “work-in” trend. It’s been an entirely different play in 2021, however, as the stock has plunged 72% year to date, and closed Wednesday at $42.25, the lowest price since May 27, 2020.

In comparison, shares of fitness center operator Planet Fitness Inc.
PLNT,
-2.63%
have gained 3.6% this year and the S&P 500 index
SPX,
-1.26%
has rallied 21%.

Don’t miss: Peloton’s ‘stunning’ and ‘rapid deterioration’ of demand outlook prompts analysts to slash stock targets.

Also read: Peloton stock’s pain is the mirror opposite of Planet Fitness’ gain.

While the stock has suffered a “tough ride” this year, and the going could still be a bit rough for a while, Deutsche Bank’s Woronka said he is bullish on Peloton’s fundamentals over the longer term.

He initiated coverage of Peloton with a buy rating and a 12-month stock price target of $76, which implies nearly 80% upside from current levels. Woronka said his view is based on an “unemotional analysis” of the company’s earnings power in a “normalized, fully-reopened” economic environment.

“[W]hile it’s never fun to lead off a buy report with a ‘patience required’ asterisk of sorts, that’s exactly what we find ourselves doing here,” Woronka wrote in a note to clients.

Read more: Peloton stock tanks on weak holiday forecast, CFO admits ‘we underestimated the reopening impact on our company.’

As a fundamental analyst, Woronka said he is most interested in looking for “asymmetrical risk/reward scenarios,” and that’s what he believes Pelton’s stock provides at current levels. While there are scenarios in which the stock can still go lower, he believes there are more scenarios that result in even greater upside.

“Right now, we believe the market is looking at fitness stocks as an ‘either/or’ sector; either consumers stay at home to work out or they go back to their favorite pre-COVID-19 fitness facility,” Woronka wrote. “In our opinion, that’s an oversimplified view of the world; we think the hybrid work model extends to fitness, too, and that [Peloton] has plenty of momentum to regain operationally.”

He realizes that sentiment on the stock isn’t likely to reflect his bullish view “until a few quarters of improved execution” are in the books. But that’s where the opportunity for reward lies over a 12-month time horizon.

Once the stock starts trading on fundamentals again, Woronka believes “it has quite a bit of room to run.”

DocuSign, Tesla, Amazon and high P/E ratios

One continuing area of debate is how important price-to-earnings valuations are for stocks. The forward P/E ratio of the benchmark S&P 500 Index
SPX,
-1.28%
was 20.9 at the close on Dec. 2, based on weighted consensus estimates among analysts polled by FactSet. That was on the high side — the average forward P/E for the index has been 18.7 over the past five years and 16.8 for 10 years.

But some stocks of rapidly growing companies trade at much higher valuations. In the case of Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-1.73%,
P/E ratios have averaged 101.7 over the past 20 years and are now valued at 67.5 times forward earnings, with investors’ confidence springing from by a continual rapid increase in revenue.

But any hint of a sales slowdown can cause a highflier to plunge.

Shares of DocuSign Inc.
DOCU,
-41.24%
were trading at a forward P/E valuation of 106.3 when the market closed on Dec. 2. The stock plunged as much as 40% early on Dec. 3.

The company reported adjusted earnings and sales for its fiscal third quarter ended Oct. 31 that were higher than analysts’ consensus estimates. So what was the problem? DocuSign CEO Don Springer said that after six quarters of “accelerated” sales growth, its customers had returned to “more normalized buying patterns.” The company’s billings — not sales, but future sales under contract — had come in lower than expected.

High P/E stocks’ sensitivity to indications of slower growth are one of the reasons Tesla Inc.’s
TSLA,
-6.20%
stock is controversial, trading at a forward P/E of 131.7. Gary Black explained why he still thinks shares of the electric car maker are a good buy.

More coverage of DocuSign and Tesla:

The bank of bitcoin

No, that’s not its real name — the first federal charter for a bank focused on digital assets was handed to Anchorage Digital Bank in January. Frances Yue interviewed CEO Nathan McCauley, who shared a fascinating prediction about the financial industry.

Want the most important insights on crypto and DeFi? Sign up for Frances Yue’s Distributed Ledger column.

Other crypto coverage:

How people think about where to live

Women and men often want the same things when it comes to deciding where to live, however, their preferences can vary when it comes down to selecting cities. Amanda Weinstein, an associate professor of economics at the University of Akron and Lockwood Reynolds, an associate professor of economics at Kent State University, share the results of their research into these differing thought patterns.

Must you play it safe when investing for retirement?

Buying and holding stocks is associated with building up a nest egg for retirement, but Brett Arends looks into momentum strategies that may lead to better returns.

A feud over a home

Jacob Passy writes The Big Move column, which tackles housing-related problems. This week, he helps a reader who asks if she has “squatter’s rights” to a home she has lived in for 30 years, even though her ex-husband is a half-owner who wishes to sell the property.

A holiday warning

Many retailers offer to allow shoppers to “buy now and pay later,” often with terms that appear to be free of charge. But it is best not to assume you know all the pitfalls. Katherine Wiles looks at various types of deals and describes how easy it is for shoppers to get in over their heads.

Want more from MarketWatch? Sign up for this and other newsletters, and get the latest news, personal finance and investing advice.

Breaking news: November’s 210,000 new jobs marks worst headline number of 2021 — but there are bright spots

Historically, the unemployment rate for Black people has been about twice that of white people, but that changed during the later stages of the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, as the economy crept closer to full employment and more Black job seekers found employment. The latest figures show that some of the gains made by Black people in the labor market in those days have persisted even through the pandemic.

However, the unemployment rate is a crude measurement of the job market’s health, because it depends crucially on labor-force participation: You can’t be counted as unemployed if you aren’t looking — and lots of people aren’t looking.

The labor-force participation rate dropped precipitously for all groups during the recession last year, but it fell more for some groups than others. The Black labor-force participation rate, for example, fell 4.5 percentage points in the first two months of the pandemic, while the participation rate for white people fell only half as much, 2.2 points.

By August of this year, the Black participation rate had caught up with the rate for white Americans, but it has fallen behind again in recent months. Around 91,000 Black women exited the labor force in November.

Economists say that people have left the labor force for many reasons, including the fact that a large number of workers have retired. Others stayed out of the labor force because their children couldn’t go to school or daycare, because they were caring for others, or because they were afraid of becoming infected on the job. Still others figured that working didn’t pay because they were getting federal unemployment or stimulus benefits.

For the population as a whole, the participation rate remains 1.5 percentage points below the pre-pandemic level, which means that the labor force is about 3.8 million lower than it would be if participation rates had recovered fully.

Women have also regained much of the ground they lost during the pandemic, at least as far as the unemployment rate goes. Early in the pandemic, the jobless rate for women got as high as 16.1%, while the rate for men topped out at 13.6%. But now their unemployment rates are nearly identical: 4.2% for men and 4.3% for women. That’s where their jobless rates were in early 2018.

But here, too, the unemployment rate is an imperfect indicator given that mothers with school-age children are experiencing a child-care crisis. If the labor-force participation rate for women had returned to pandemic levels, there would be about 2.1 million more women in the labor force.

Rex Nutting has been covering economics for more than 25 years.

“In this situation, the whole is a lot better than the sum of the parts because scale is going to win in California,” Hawkins told MarketWatch.

Harborside closed its $44 million acquisition of Sublime LLC, a cannabis manufacturer based in Oakland, in July.

Harborside plans to combine Urbn Leaf, Loudpack and Sublime and then change its name to StateHouse for trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker “STHZ,” with shares also available on the U.S. over-the-counter market. The deals are expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

See now: Cannabis company High Tide eyes more acquisitions as CEO channels Jeff Bezos for e-commerce inspiration

“We’ve got a task of integrating four companies and that’ll be our primary focus,” Hawkins said. “And then after the first quarter, we’ll start looking. Our deal pipeline is full of opportunities, but we have to be smart when we pounce.”

As part of the latest deal, Urbn Leaf CEO Ed Schmults will become CEO of StateHouse. However, Harborside will continue to control the company with three seats on its board of directors, with Hawkins remaining as chairman. Hawkins is also founder and managing principal of Cresco Capital Management LLC, which initially invested in Harborside in 2016. Hawkins joined the board of Harborside in 2018.

Urbn Leaf will combine its cannabis dispensaries in Southern California with Harborside’s retail presence in Northern California, while Loudpack and Sublime will add to the company’s brand portfolio and cannabis cultivation holdings.

Read:Canada’s cannabis companies cut 6,000 jobs during COVID-19 pandemic

With combined revenue of $215 million to $220 million, StateHouse plans to continue to bulk up to compete in the fragmented California cannabis market, which has been facing oversupply and competition from lower-priced product from the illicit, or legacy market.

Despite these obstacles, the California market offers rich rewards in some respects because of its size and fragmentation. The state’s legal cannabis business now counts 7,800 cultivators, 1,000 distributors and 1,300 brands, with projected sales of $7.4 billion by 2025, according to figures in a presentation by Harborside.

Harborside is positioning itself as the largest cannabis platform in the state with retail stores, brands, processing, manufacturing, distribution and cultivation.

Other larger players in California include Glass House Brands Inc.
GLASF,
-0.93%
and Lowell Farms Inc.
LOWLF,
+13.45%

LOWL,
+12.90%.

See: Aurora Cannabis stock dips as earnings show another sales miss, but narrowing losses

As part of its acquisitions of Urbn Leaf and Loudpack, Harborside inked a letter of intent with Pelorus Equity Group to complete $77.3 million of non-dilutive real estate debt financing.

Travis Goad, managing partner of Pelorus Equity Group, said the financing deal with Harborside marks its largest individual debt deal since the firm launched in 2010. The Laguna Hills, Calif.-based specialty finance company expects to have about $250 million in assets under management by the end of 2021.

Despite weak stock prices in the sector, the businesses remain viable, he said,

“We’re seeing the revenue on these assets are still growing and the markets are growing,” Goad said. “Even though equities are underperforming, the underlying U.S cannabis businesses are growing. That’s what we care about. These assets really have value. Even in a more mature market like Colorado, it’s still growing at about 20%. The price action in the public equities market doesn’t really reflect what you’re seeing on the ground in these businesses.”

Shares of Harborside fell 3.7% to 52 cents a share on Friday. The stock is down 67% so far in 2021, compared to a 24.9% YTD loss by the Cannabis ETF
THCX,
-3.94%.

Don’t miss: New York’s new cannabis chief vows that half of legal licenses will go to social justice efforts

Chief Financial Officer Jean Hu said on the earnings call late Thursday that she expects “continued strong demand across our end markets and improvement in supply to drive our top line revenue growth above 30% in fiscal 2023.” That projection generated enthusiasm, as did Marvell’s January-quarter revenue forecast that implied upwards of 60% growth.

The company’s earnings call could have been “one of the best (if not the best) semi conf[erence] calls I have listened to in quite some time,” wrote Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein in a note affiliated with Mizuho’s sales operations and not its research team. “In fact, it was a GAME-CHANGER for investors and in my view squarely positions MRVL as a best-in-class GROWTH SEMI into CY22,” he continued.

Marvell “will be in the same camp now” as Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
-4.65%
and Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-4.85%,
he argued, amid the company’s cheery growth projections and likely expectations among the bull camp for $4 a share in annual earnings power within a few years. The company has a “clear line of sight given a backlog full of design wins that has basically locked in that growth rate” on the revenue line, he said in his note.

The current FactSet EPS consensus is $1.54 for the current fiscal year, and is $2.20 for next year.

Klein wasn’t alone in likening Marvell to a red-hot chip stock. “Marvell just pulled an ‘Nvidia’ on the Street last night, with an unambiguous beat and raise and taking FY23 sales growth to over 30%,” wrote Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann.

Subscribe: Want intel on all the news moving markets? Sign up for our daily Need to Know newsletter.

Elsewhere, Marvell’s report sparked at least one upgrade from a research analyst.

“It’s hard to argue this was anything but a watershed quarter with a triad of better results, better guidance, and an expanding design pipeline that anchors a new F23 guide,” wrote Cowen & Co.’s Karl Ackerman, who lifted his rating on Marvell’s stock to outperform from market perform.

Ackerman cheered Marvell’s recent evolution, anchored by “portfolio-optimization” progress that has made the company increasingly competitive, in his view. “Indeed, Marvell has transformed itself from being a fast-follower to a market leader of providing semi-custom, integrated ICs on leading-edge silicon that address bandwidth friction existing in today’s networks,” he wrote, while increasing his price target to $100 from $60.

The report served as validation for those who had already taken bullish views on the stock and are now bringing their expectations higher. “Taking a step back, we have been highlighting MRVL as one of the best growth stories in semis, and to this end they are clearly not disappointing,” wrote Evercore ISI analyst C.J. Muse.

He now sees “a clear path to a $3.25+ earnings stretch goal in FY24,” whereas the consensus was for $2.43 a share, he said. “Looking out further, we believe that the $4.00 bogey we have been discussing by CY25 is now likely conservative – with earnings likely tracking closer to $4.25+ when all is said and done (at a minimum),” Muse continued, while boosting his price target to $105 from $72 and keeping an outperform rating.

Marvell shares have rocketed 75% so far this year, while Nvidia shares have soared 134%, AMD’s stock has rallied 56% and the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.99%
has risen 20%.

These fees disproportionately affect Black and Latinx households, who are 1.9 times and 1.4 times more likely to incur overdraft fees, respectively, compared to white households, according to a June report published by the Financial Health Network, a nonprofit organization that receives funding from Citi Foundation.

In 2019, banks charged U.S. customers $15.47 billion in overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees, according to a report published Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The same day the CFPB released its report, Capital One
COF,
+0.05%
announced it would “completely eliminate overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees for all Capital One consumer bank customers,” according to a memo from the bank’s CEO, Richard Fairbank.

The CFPB report said banks “rely heavily” on revenue from fees. JPMorgan Chase
JPM,
-1.16%,
 Wells Fargo
WFC,
-1.59%
and Bank of America 
BAC,
-1.02%
brought in 44% of the total overdraft fee revenue collected in 2019 by banks with at least $1 billion in assets.

All three banks didn’t respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment. Citigroup declined to comment; it charges $34 overdraft fees.

Spokespeople for JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo previously told MarketWatch that their banks provide services to help customers avoid overdraft fees.

Wells Fargo said it offers accounts with no overdraft fees. A JPMorgan spokesperson told MarketWatch that the CFPB’s data does not reflect changes it made earlier this year to “significantly” increase “the amount a customer can overdraw before overdraft fees are charged.” The bank also eliminated its insufficient funds fee earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Will Capital One’s move to eliminate overdraft and insufficient fund fees lead other banks to slash theirs as well?

It’s “great news” that Capital One got rid of these fees, Smith said. “I hope more banks follow their lead,” he added, predicting that some banks will succumb to the pressure that Capital One’s move to eliminate fees puts on them.

Capital One followed in the footsteps of the online bank Ally, which stopped charging overdraft fees entirely in June, citing the toll the fees can take on Blank and Latino households.

One of the reasons that many banks haven’t stopped charging the fees already is that they’ve incorporated the fees they collect into their revenue models, Smith said. “It’s an easy, steady stream of money,” he said.

Meghan Greene, director of research at FHN, said Capital One’s move “is the most recent signal that the financial services industry is moving toward prioritizing the financial health of consumers.”

But “institutional change isn’t sufficient, there needs to be regulatory change,” Smith told MarketWatch.

CFBP Director Rohit Chopra promised just that.

“Rather than competing on quality service and attractive interest rates, many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model,” he said in a statement published on Wednesday.

“We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.”