Cyclicals, Russell 2000, Tesla Charge Forward As Chaos Appears At Capitol Hill

What in the world is going on with our nation folks? What would men like Abraham Lincoln say? How can it be acceptable for our citizens to be rioting Capitol Hill and not allow the electoral process to be completed? If you have any answers, then please let me know as I cannot see how this type of approach and associated chaos can result in any positive outcome for the greater good. Here’s wishing for better and more peaceful Covid-19 & protest free times…

As for the markets, hump day saw the cyclicals charge forward as the financials sector jumped 4.4%, the materials sector jumped 4.1%, the energy sector added 3%, & the industrials sector added a more than respectable 2.4%. However the information technology sector was off 1.8% & the communication services sector dropped .7%.

The indices were led by the Russell 2000 today, which flew back over the 2k mark acheiving a new record high and ending at 2057.92 up an incredible 3.98%. The Dow 30 also achieved a new record high and closed at 30,829.40 (+1.44%).  The S&P 500 also moved higher and closed at 3,748.14 (+.57%). However, the tech heavy Nasdaq closed lower at 12,740.79 (-.61%).

THE MACRO

The macro schedule delivered the Factory orders for manufactured goods report which confirmed an rise by 1% in November exhibiting a rise in business spending. The ADP Employment Change report for December estimated that private-sector payrolls dropped by 123k. The December IHS Markit Services PMI report confirmed a drop to 54.8. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.7%. Tomorrow, we will receive the the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index report for December, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, & the Trade Balance report for November.

TECH HIGHLIGHTS

The heavily weighted & popular FAANG’s had a down day again and ended as follows: Apple (AAPL) shares closed at $126.60/share down 3.37%,  Amazon (AMZN) ($3,138.38, -2.49%), Alphabet (GOOG) ($1,735.29, -.32%), Facebook (FB) closed at $263.31, -2.83% & Netflix (NFLX) closed at $500.49/share, -3.9%. 

EV giant Tesla (TSLA) moved higher again today achieving yet another new all-time record high prior to closing at $755.98, +2.84% as they recently reported record Q4 deliveries, higher wall street/Morgan Stanley price targets and a pro-EV/green energy democratic senate situation. Chinese EV concern NIO Limited (NIO) closed at $50.50/share, -5.08%. 

Leading provider of hydrogen engines and fueling solutions enabling e-mobility, Plug Power (PLUG), jumped 7.53% today to close at $35/share. Recently, PLUG announced that is expanding is relationship with Walmart (WMT) & confirmed that they had sold 38M shares priced at $22.25/shares raising a whopping $845.5M which represented about 9.1% of the shares outstanding and which brings their capital to the $1.7B range. 

BIOTECH & HEALTHCARE

Dow 30 component UnitedHealth (UNH) ($359.27, +4.2%) announced it is acquiring IT health firm Change Healthcare (CHNG) ($23.72, $30.04%) for $7.84B or 25.75/share. The companies plan to close in the 2nd half of 2021.

AmerisourceBergen (ABC) ($106.17, +8.6%) said it will buy Walgreens Boots Alliance’s (WBA) ($43.03, +4.5%) drug-distribution business for $6.5B seeking to expand coverage in Europe. AmerisourceBergen is paying Walgreens $6.27B in cash along with 2M shares. Interestingly, Walgreens happens to be the single largest shareholder of AmerisourceBergen with ~30% ownership.

Little known San Francisco-based Jaguar Health, Inc. (JAGX) continued upward today reaching an intraday high of $2.30 prior to closing $2.01/share up 3.08% on +73.61 million shares of trading volume and is up more than 300% since we entered the stock near the end of 2020 in the $.30 range. Today they announced that its subsidiary is receiving preclinical services from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases for a new preclinical study  initiated January 6, 2021 for Lechlemer plant-based drug candidate for symptomatic relief go diarrhea from cholera.

GOLD & SILVER

North American Silver and gold producer Hecla Mining Company (HL) closed at $6.97/share, +.14% as both silver ($27/oz, -.30) and gold (1,926, -27) cooled off a bit. HL’s 52-week range is $1.4 – $7.06. 

MONEY

The 2-yr treasury yield closed level at .12% while the 10-yr yield rose 4 basis points to a close at .96%. The U.S. Dollar Index weakened closing at 89.51.

VP WATCH LIST HIGHLIGHTS

• Shares of Atossa Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATOS) closed at $.9207/share, 19.24% and traded 31.49 Million shares after raising an additional $25.2M after recently ATOS after raising $37M gross proceeds between two equity raises in December 2020. 

• •  Atossa is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company seeking to discover and develop innovative medicines in areas of significant unmet medical need with a current focus on breast cancer and COVID-19.

• • Atossa recently announced blinded preliminary results from its Phase 1 clinical study using Atossa’s proprietary drug candidate AT-301 administered by nasal spray. AT-301 was found to be safe and well tolerated in this study at two different dose levels in both single and multiple dose forms over 14 days. AT-301 is being developed for at home use for patients recently diagnosed with COVID-19. There are currently no FDA-approved therapies to treat COVID-19 at home.  They are seeking to move into a Phase 2 trial as soon as possible. 

• Natural-Killer cell (NKcell) focused biopharmaceutical firm Fate Therapeutics (FATE) closed at $99.78/share, +15.06% after announcing the pricing of an underwritten public offering of ~$400 million. Jefferies, BofA Securities, SVB Leerink and Barclays acted as joint book-running managers for the offering.

  • We started with Fate over 3 years ago when it was in the $3 range. Fate’s 52-wk range is $16.75- $103.86. 

  • Recently, Fate presented a patient case study from the Company’s Phase 1 clinical trial of FT596, its universal, off-the-shelf, CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cell product candidate, at the 62nd Annual Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition and the street loved it. NK cells are the body’s first line of defense against viral infections and cancerous cells with an innate ability to rapidly seek and destroy transformed cells. NK cell therapy has the potential to 1) target multiple pathogenic antigens with measurably more efficient cytotoxicity, 2) be better controlled to reduce risk of cytokine storms and 3) be produced from a variety of sources without relying on patient-specific immune cells. Dr. Wayne Chu, Senior Vice President, Clinical Development of Fate Therapeutics stated, “The safety, pharmacokinetics and clinical activity observed following both the first and second single-dose treatment cycles of FT596 are compelling, especially when considering that the administered cell dose was significantly lower than the recommended cell dose of FDA-approved autologous CD19-targeted CAR T-cell therapies and that the heavily pre-treated patient was refractory to last prior therapy. We are excited the CAR component of FT596 has shown clinical activity at this low dose level, and we continue to enroll patients in dose escalation with FT596 as a monotherapy and in combination with rituximab. Our recent Phase 1 clinical data with FT516 in combination with rituximab, which demonstrate the potential of our novel hnCD16 Fc receptor to

• Shares of INVO Bioscience (INVO) closed trading at $3.06/share, -.65% after receiving a BUY Ratings from both Roth Capital ($5 PT) & Collier International Securities ( $5.75 PT) in December.  

• • INVO is a medical device company focused on creating alternative treatments for patients diagnosed with infertility and developers of INVOcell®, the world’s only in vivo Intravaginal Culture System. Industry forecasts suggest that only 1% to 2% of the estimated 150 million infertile couples worldwide are currently being treated. INVO’s mission is to increase access to care and expand infertility treatment across the globe with a goal of improving patient affordability and industry capacity. Since January 2019, INVO Bioscience has signed commercialization agreements in the United States, India, as well as parts of Africa and Eurasia and Mexico for the INVOcell device.

• • Recently, INVO also filed an 8k highlighting three new business partners that they have established to distribute and/or develop “invocell only” clinics in Malaysia and North Macedonia. 

• Shares of NeuBase Therapeutics (NBSE) closed trading at $7.22, +1.2%.

• • NeuBase is developing the next generation of gene silencing therapies with its flexible, highly specific synthetic antisense oligonucleotides. The proprietary NeuBase peptide-nucleic acid (PNA) antisense oligonucleotide (PATrOL™) platform allows for the rapid development of targeted drugs, increasing the treatment opportunities for the hundreds of millions of people affected by rare genetic diseases, including those that can only be treated through accessing of secondary RNA structures. Using PATrOL technology, NeuBase aims to first tackle rare, genetic neurological disorders.
• • Recently, I hosted a FREE Presentation & Q&A Event for our sister organization Tribe Public with the CEO & Founder of NeuBase Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NBSE) ($7.80/share), Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D., an industry veteran who is considered one of the fathers of the field of precision medicine. The presentation is titled “Accelerating the Genetic Revolution with a New Class of Synthetic Medicines.” You can view the recording at the Tribe Public Channel. 

Make sure you check out the interesting quotes and the videos that I have highlighted below. 

Economic Reports

• On Monday, the macro schedule delivered a couple of reports as the total construction spending report confirmed a rose by .9% in November while the total private construction spending report confirmed a move higher by 1.2% month/month. However, the total public construction spending report confirmed a drop by .2%. The December IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI report also showed a rise to 57.1.

• On Wednesday, the Factory orders for manufactured goods report which confirmed an rise by 1% in November exhibiting a rise in business spending. The ADP Employment Change report for December estimated that private-sector payrolls dropped by 123k. The December IHS Markit Services PMI report confirmed a drop to 54.8. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.7%.
• Tomorrow, we will receive the the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index report for December, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, & the Trade Balance report for November.

Investing & Inspiration

“Wise spending is part of wise investing. And it’s never too late to start.” –Rhonda Katz

“It amazes me how people are often more willing to act based on little or no data than to use data that is a challenge to assemble.” ― Robert Shiller

“A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.” — Barton Biggs

“The investor’s chief problem — even his worst enemy — is likely to be himself.” — Benjamin Graham

“No profession requires more hard work, intelligence, patience, and mental discipline than successful speculation.” – Robert Rhea

“Money is like a sixth sense – and you can’t make use of the other five without it.” – William Somerset Maugham

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.” — Albert Einstein

“Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results” — Warren Buffett

“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” – Warren Buffett

“Thousands of experts study overbought indicators, head-and-shoulder patterns, put-call ratios, the Fed’s policy on money supply…and they can’t predict markets with any useful consistency, any more than the gizzard squeezers could tell the Roman emperors when the Huns would attack.” – Peter Lynch

“Investing puts money to work. The only reason to save money is to invest it.” – Grant Cardone

“You cannot save time for your future use however you can invest time for your future.” – John F. Heerdink, Jr. 

“Know what you own, and know why you own it.” – Peter Lynch

“Liquidity is only there when you don’t need it.” -Old Proverb

“If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.” – Richard Branson

“Fear incites human action far more urgently than does the impressive weight of historical evidence.” – Jeremy Siegel

“In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.” – Robert Arnott

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” – Charlie Munger

“The entrance strategy is actually more important than the exit strategy.” – Edward Lampert

“The rivers don’t drink their own water; Trees don’t eat their own fruits. The sun does not shine for itself, And flowers do not spread their fragrance For themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature” – Pope Francis

“It is impossible to produce superior performance unless you do something different from the majority.” – John Templeton

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin.

“I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!” -Bill Gates

“Every portfolio benefits from bonds; they provide a cushion when the stock market hits a rough patch. But avoiding stocks completely could mean your investment won’t grow any faster than the rate of inflation.” – Suze Orman

“The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility, and flow of risk capital… the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.” – John F. Kennedy

“If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion. -George Bernard Shaw

“There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.”-Ed Seykota

“Let this scenario play out on its own, in its own fashion. As you watch it unfold, you will soon be grateful that you choose the peaceful path. Remember — those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

“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