“More Green, More Records For The Markets, Apple, Facebook & GOOG” – Vista Partners Daily Market Recap For January 9, 2020

The broad markets drove further afield into more green territory today as the Iran tension situation seemed to ease.  The S&P 500, The Dow Jones Industrial Average, & The Nasdaq Composite hit new all-time highs today.

The S&P 500 ended at 3,274.70, +.67%. 11 of the eleven S&P 500 sectors finished in the green. Three of the FAANG stocks helped drive the move as they hit new record highs. Apple (AAPL) closed at $309.63/share,+2.12% after hitting an all-time high of $310.43/share, Alphabet (GOOG) closed at $1419.83/share, +1.10%, after hitting an all-time high of $1,427.33/share, & Facebook (FB) closed at $218.30/share, +1.43%, after hitting an all-time high of $218.38/share.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at 28,956.90, +.74%. The Nasdaq Composite ended at 9,203.43, +.81%.

The Russell 2000 also rose by +.08% ending at 1664.99.

The “fear gauge” Vix (TVIX) ended at $44.96/share, -6.82% and traded in a range of $44.90 – $7.04.

Economic Reports

We did not receive any significant economic data Monday.

On Tuesday, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index Report for December confirmed a 55% reading (an increase) while the Factory Orders Report showed a decrease by -.7% month/month in November as Shipments rose +.3%. The trade deficit tightened to $43.1B in November.

On Wednesday, The ADP Employment Change Report confirmed that ~202k positions were added to private-sector payrolls in December.  The Consumer credit report also rose by $12.5B in November.

On Thursday, the initial jobless claims report for the week ending January 4 showed a move down by 9k to 214k while continuing claims for the week ending December 28 rose by 75k to 1.803M.

Investing & Inspiration

“As long as you enjoy investing, you’ll be willing to do the homework and stay in the game.” -Jim Cramer

“I rarely think the market is right. I believe non-dividend stocks aren’t much more than baseball cards. They are worth what you can convince someone to pay for it.” -Mark Cuban

“Michael Marcus taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money.” -Bruce Kovner

“The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.” -Jawaharlal Nehru

“The only true test of whether a stock is “cheap” or “high” is not its current price in relation to some former price, no matter how accustomed we may have become to that former price, but whether the company’s fundamentals are significantly more or less favorable than the current financial-community appraisal of that stock.” -Philip Fisher

“I learned to avoid trying to catch up or double up to recoup losses. I also learned that a certain amount of loss will affect your judgment, so you have to put some time between that loss and the next trade.” -Richard Dennis

“The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.” -Sir John Templeton

“Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger

Tomorrow

We are due to receive the Employment Situation Report for December & the Wholesale Inventories Report for November tomorrow.

On a trading basis here are 4 ideas in healthcare to check out again today which may become even more interesting if we see a pullback tomorrow as the annual JPMorgan Healthcare conference comes into focus next week.

• Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR) which closed at $1.96/share last Thursday when we originally highlighted them after they recently announced a $276M exchange of convertible senior debt that moved maturity out to 2024.  Shares of ACOR spiked to $2.77/share this week and pulled back to close at $2.28/share today.

•  Aduro Biotech, Inc. (ADRO) closed at $1.18/share last Thursday and has interesting data points due in the 1st half 2020. Shares of ADRO moved up to $1.39/share this week and closed at $1.33/share today.

• IsoRay, Inc. (ISR) skyrocketed up +34.43% closing at $.82/share after achieving a new 52-week high of $.85/share on 3.23 million shares of trading or approx. 10X its daily volume yesterday. Today the shares of ISR closed at $.7165/share, -12.62%.  ISR feels as though it could have a nice melt up to find new heights in the $4-6 range in the first quarter. On November 12th, 2019 ISR reported its record Q1 fiscal 2020 financial results and  CEO Lori Woods said, “These are exciting times for Isoray. We are very pleased by the continued progress we have made and the accelerated growth we have achieved. These results speak to the momentum we are realizing from the strategic direction and changes we have implemented to chart a new course for Isoray. Clearly, the strategies we’ve employed and the steps we have taken to establish Isoray’s leadership role in the prostate brachytherapy industry over the past year are resulting in accelerated organic growth and market share gains. A clear example can be seen in the trailing twelve months where our net new physician customer count increased 26% versus the previous twelve month period. We still have work to do and we will remain focused on our goals for growth and profitability.” Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2020 grew 48% to a record $2.32 million versus $1.56 million in the prior year comparable period. The revenue increase was driven by 51% growth in the company’s core prostate brachytherapy business. Prostate brachytherapy represented 90% of total revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2020 compared to 88% in the prior year comparable period. Non-prostate brachytherapy revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 was comprised primarily of sales to treat brain, gynecological, colorectal, and other cancers. Gross profit as a percentage of revenues increased to 53.4% for the three months ended September 30, 2019, versus 33.5% in the prior year comparable period. First-quarter gross profit increased 136% to $1.24 million versus $0.52 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, largely attributed to increased sales and significantly lower isotope unit costs compared to the prior year comparable period, continued leverage of the fixed cost components within costs of sales, and more efficient isotope usage. The lower isotope unit costs are related to the previously discussed supply chain change made at the end of the calendar year 2018.

• Neubase Therapeutics (NBSE) closed trading at $6.90/share last Thursday and expects several data points to be released in the 1st half of 2020 with regard to their gene silencing platform that is initially targeting HD and ALS. Today NBSE closed up again at $7.40/share, +2.78%.