Fed Stays Pat, Snowflake IPO Surges, & Markets Close Mixed On Wednesday

The markets ended mixed today after Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed that the Fed would be leaving interest rates lower for the foreseeable future or until the US economy achieves “maximum employment” with an average 2% inflation rate in hand. On the positive side of the coin, the little guys on Russell 2000 added .92% ending at 1,552.33 & the Dow 30 closed above 28k again at 28,032 adding .13%. However, on the negative side of the coin, the Nasdaq dropped 1.25% giving back yesterday’s gain and a little more ending at 11,050.47. The S&P 500 ended at 3,385.49 down .46%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector fell 1.6% to add the drag on the overall markets today and the energy sector jumped 4.1% to lead all sectors as oil prices moved up another 4.9% closing at $40.172/bbl. A few energy leaders closed as follows: Chevron (CVX) closed at $78.56/share up 2.89%, midstream player, Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), closed trading at $17.02/share up 1.43% and is currently sporting an attractive $1.78/share dividend or 10.61% while USA Corporation Partners, LP. (USAC), one of the nation’s largest independent providers of natural gas compression services, closed at $11.07/share down 2.7% while offering a $2.10/share (18.62%) dividend.

The macroeconomic schedule produced reports of significance. The total sales report confirmed a rise of .6% month/month in August & when excluding autos, sales rose .7%. The NAHB Housing Market Index report confirmed a rise to a new all-time high of 83 in September.
The business inventories report confirmed a rise of .1% in July.

Today, the IPO world saw the cloud computing company, Snowflake (SNOW), go public at $120/share on the NYSE above the 2 state ranges through the IPO process that picked up Warren Buffett and Salesforce as investors to boot. It opened at $231.11/share and skyrocketed up to $319/share prior to closing at $253.93/share up 111.61%. This was a truly masterful job of marketing pre and post the deal that showed amazingly well today. Hope you got a piece but if not I would not be surprised that we could see a pullback over the next week and a more attractive entry point might present itself.

The FAANGs took it on the chin, for the most part, today and all finished as follows: Facebook (FB) closed at $263.52/share down 3.27% as “news” that the FTC may be preparing an antitrust suit against them surfaced, Amazon (AMZN) closed at $3,078.10/share down 2.47%, Apple (AAPL) closed at $112.13/share down 2.95%, Netflix (NFLX) dropped 2.45% closing at $483.86/share & Alphabet (GOOG) closed at $1,520.90/share down 1.33%. 

Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA), closed at $441.76/share down 1.78%. Plug Power (PLUG), the leading provider of clean hydrogen and zero-emission fuel cell solutions that are both cost-effective and reliable, closed up another 3.27% at $12.94/share after spiking to $13.09 in intraday trading. They recently closed a $300M financing at $10.25/share and would seem to be in an interesting position with the number of deals and adoption being realized in the sector. Last week we purchased bullish call options in PLUG.

Gold closed at $1960(+5) while silver closed at $27.27/oz (+.01). North American silver and gold producer Hecla Mining Company (HL) closed at $5.78/share down .34% after recently establishing another new 52-week high of $6.79/share during intraday trading. HL’s 52-week low is $1.38. Tribe Public’s Webinar Presentation and Q&A Event will Phillips S. Baker, Jr., President, and CEO of Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL) has been rescheduled for September 30th (8:30 am pacific/ 11:30 am eastern.) He will deliver a ~20-minute presentation titled “A Uniquely Scarce Investment.” You may join by registering at Tribe Public. Last week, Hecla announced that its Board of Directors is increasing the expected minimum quarterly dividend 50% to an annualized one and one-half cents per share and lowering the silver-linked dividend threshold price. If Hecla’s average realized silver price for a quarter is $25.00 per ounce, the new silver-linked quarterly dividend policy provides an annualized two cents per share, while at $30 and above, the realized silver-linked dividend per quarter is unchanged. Recently, Hecla reported 24% higher revenues on higher production and prices in Q2 2020. Cantor Fitzgerald Analyst Mike Kizak updated his coverage moving his Speculative Buy rating to a Buy rating and moving his target price to $7.25/share. North American silver producer First Majestic Silver (AG) closed at $12.20/share down .89% after recently establishing a new 52-week high of $14.57 recently. Last week, First Majestic announced that it has entered into an agreement with Cormark Securities Inc., as underwriter (the “Underwriter”) pursuant to which the Underwriter has agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 5,000,000 common shares of First Majestic (the “Common Shares”) at a price of CDN$15.60 per Common Share for gross proceeds of CDN$78,000,000 (the “Offering”). The sole investor under the Offering will be Canadian billionaire businessman, Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation beneficially controlled by him. This investment will result in Mr. Sprott holding approximately 2.3% of First Majestic’s issued and outstanding common shares, post-closing.

The 2-yr US treasury yield closed up 1 basis point closing at .14% while the 10-yr yield closed up 1 basis point at .69%. The U.S. Dollar Index strengthened to close at 93.17.

Here’s a couple of other equities that moved significantly higher today along with our stocks in view and what to expect from the macroeconomic schedule:

TOMORROW

It will be a busy day tomorrow as the macroeconomic calendar will deliver the following reports:

• The weekly Initial and Continuing claims reports
• The Housing Starts and Building Permits reports for August
• The Philadelphia Fed Index report for September

WATCH LIST

Atossa Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ATOS) closed at $2.25/share off 3.43%.

• • ATOS’ stock has seen positive trading volatility this year and has moved up from $.76/share on significantly increasing trading volume and established a new 52-week high of $5.08/share on August 3rd. 

  • Today, Atossa filed an S-3 $100M shelf registration shelf. 

• • This week, Atossa announced a positive interim safety assessment from the first cohort of healthy participants in their Phase 1 clinical study using Atossa’s proprietary drug candidate AT-301 administered by nasal spray. This first group of 8 participants received a single dose of either AT-301A (placebo) or AT-301B (active drug). This blinded, positive assessment by the safety committee allows the study to now enroll in the next cohort. Learn more.

• • Recently, Atossa announced its Q2 2020 financial results and gave a corporate update highlighting the following: 
    • Received approval from the Australian Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) to open a Phase 1 clinical study in Australia using Atossa’s proprietary drug candidate AT-301 administered by nasal spray. As of August 3, 2020, all necessary approvals were obtained and enrollment is expected to begin in the coming weeks.
    • Contracted with Avance Clinical Pty. Ltd. to conduct a clinical study of Atossa’s AT-301. Avance is a leading Australian clinical research organization and has successfully completed multiple clinical studies of Atossa’s proprietary Endoxifen.
    • Announced successful in vitro testing of both of Atossa’s COVID-19 therapies under development: AT-301 and AT-H201. The preliminary study results show that AT-301 and the components of AT-H201 inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infectivity of VERO cells in a laboratory culture, which is the standard disease model used for initial screening of COVID-19 drug candidates.
    • Announced interim findings following 18 months of an Expanded Access (or “compassionate use”) single-patient study of Endoxifen. The patient in the study had no cancer recurrence and suffered no side effects. Endoxifen did not cause other safety and tolerability concerns in this patient.
    • Advanced product development programs with multiple key hires in clinical, regulatory, and chemistry manufacturing and controls. The hiring of these talented and highly accomplished individuals will help accelerate the advancement of Atossa’s development pipeline, which includes programs in breast cancer and COVID-19.
    • Completed sales of all available shares under Atossa’s at-the-market financing program with total gross proceeds to Atossa of $5 million through July 2020. As of June 30, 2020, the Company had approximately $7.5 million in cash and cash equivalents and with this program, they received an additional $4.3 million in July 2020.

• • Dr. Steven Quay MD, Ph.D., Atossa’s founder, and CEO, recently published the following book “Your COVID-19 Survival Manual: A Physician’s Guide to Keep You and Your Family Healthy During the Pandemic and Beyond,” in paperback and eBook format on his website, www.DrQuay.com. Proceeds from the book will go to military veterans performing COVID-19 relief work in their communities.  You may order it here.

• Shares of Fate Therapeutics (FATE) closed at $376.93/share off 1.69% after establishing a new all-time high of $38.90/share.

  • Fate is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of programmed cellular immunotherapies for cancer and immune disorders. 

  • On Aug. 19, Fate announced that Edward Dulac has been appointed Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Dulac comes to the Company from Celgene Corporation, where he most recently served as Vice President, Business Development & Strategy, and brings an extensive array of biopharmaceutical experience having served for over 20 years in positions in finance, business development, and product portfolio strategy.

  • On Aug. 5, Fate Reported Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results and Highlights Operational Progress ending the quarter with $533 Million in Cash & Short-term Investments. Scott Wolchko, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fate Therapeutics stated, “Early clinical data from our FT596 program are very encouraging, as we observed a partial response in a heavily-pretreated patient with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma at the first dose level without any reported events of cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity or graft-versus-host disease. Additionally, the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity data across our off-the-shelf NK cell programs continue to suggest that multiple doses of iPSC-derived NK cells can be administered to a patient without matching. We continue to be pleased with our pace of innovation, where the recent clearances of our IND applications by the FDA for FT538, the first-ever CRISPR-edited iPSC-derived cell therapy, and for FT819, the first-ever iPSC-derived CAR T-cell therapy, continue to demonstrate our unique ability to rapidly bring multiplexed engineered, off-the-shelf NK cell and T-cell cancer immunotherapies to patients. In addition, we successfully launched our Janssen collaboration with strong momentum, bringing together Janssen’s proprietary tumor-targeting antigen binders and our industry-leading iPSC product platform to develop novel off-the-shelf CAR NK and CAR T-cell immunotherapies for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.”

  • July 14th, FATE announced that the Company entered into an exclusive license agreement with Baylor College of Medicine covering alloimmune defense receptors, a first-in-class approach that renders off-the-shelf allogeneic cell products resistant to host immune rejection. Preclinical studies published in the journal Nature Biotechnology (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0601-5) demonstrate that allogeneic cells engineered with a novel alloimmune defense receptor (ADR) are protected from both T- and NK-cell mediated rejection, and provide proof-of-concept that ADR-expressing allogeneic cell therapies can durably persist in immunocompetent recipients.

  • On June 11th, FATE announced that it had closed an underwritten public offering of 7,108,796 shares of its common stock, which included 927,324 shares that were issued pursuant to the full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares, at a public offering price of $28.31 per share. Aggregate gross proceeds from this offering, including the exercise of the option, were approximately $201.3 million, prior to deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses. 

• Shares of NeuBase Therapeutics (NBSE) closed at $8.65/share down 2.37% after recently reaching a new 52-week high recently of $11.78/share.

  • Chairman, CEO & Founder of NeuBase, Dietrich A. Stephan, Ph.D., presented at Tribe Public’s Webinar Presentation and Q&A Event that is scheduled to begin at 8 am pacific/11 am eastern Wednesday, August 26th, 2020.  During this complimentary, 30-minute event, Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D. will introduce the NeuBase’s next generation of gene silencing technology & the company’s progress with treatment candidates in Huntington’s Disease (HD) and Myotonic Dystrophy (DM1) and be available for Q&A. Here’s a link to the Tribe Public Youtube channel where you may watch the interview presentation.

• • 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. NeuBase is continuing its progress towards developing treatment candidates in Huntington’s Disease (HD) and Myotonic Dystrophy (DM1.)

  • RBC Capital Markets recently initiated coverage of NBSE today with an Outperform, Speculative Risk rating & a $16 price target. 

  • NBSE recently reported its financial results for the three and nine-month periods ended June 30, 2020. Dietrich A. Stephan, Ph.D., chief executive officer of NeuBase stated, “We are pleased with the continued execution of our development programs during 2020. This includes the announcement in late-March of compelling data that firmly validates our platform as a viable fully synthetic approach to genetic medicine. Notably, these data confirm that our therapies penetrate into the brain when administered systemically – overcoming one of the grand challenges of drug delivery. PATrOL-enabled compounds can also access tissues throughout the entire body, opening our platform up to unexplored indications that have not previously been accessible by genetic medicine technologies. These positive pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data-position our unique technology to output a vast pipeline of therapeutics to resolve innumerable human diseases. We anticipate presenting additional new data with respect to our ongoing progress in the fourth calendar quarter of this year. A key objective for our company shortly after the March data announcement was to strengthen our balance sheet in order to fully advance our strategies in HD and DM1, and build out our pipeline. This was accomplished in April with the closing of our oversubscribed capital raise of approximately $33.3 million in net proceeds that was led by fundamental healthcare investors and significantly increased our institutional shareholder base. We expect this to support our R&D and general corporate expenses into the second calendar quarter of 2022.”

• Shares of Aduro (ADRO) closed at $2.61/share up 8.07%.

• • On Aug. 18th, Chinook Therapeutics, Inc., a privately-held clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of precision medicines for kidney diseases,  announced a $106 million private placement financing, with participation from new widely respected healthcare investors including EcoR1 Capital, OrbiMed, funds managed by Rock Springs Capital, Avidity Partners, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Ally Bridge Group, Monashee Investment Management LLC, Northleaf Capital Partners, Janus Henderson Investors, Sphera Biotech, and other top-tier healthcare investors. As part of the financing, Chinook’s existing investors, Versant Ventures, Apple Tree Partners and Samsara BioCapital, will purchase $25 million in Chinook common stock on the same terms as the new investors in lieu of their prior commitment to purchase convertible notes. The private placement closing is expected to occur immediately prior to the closing of the previously announced proposed merger between Chinook and Aduro Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADRO). Following the proposed merger closing, which is expected to occur in the second half of 2020, Aduro will be renamed Chinook Therapeutics, Inc., and is expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “KDNY”. Closing of the private placement is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of all closing conditions for the proposed merger. Following the private placement financing, and upon closing of the merger, Chinook is expected to have at least $275 million in operating capital.

• • On August 3rd, provided a business update and reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020. Stephen T. Isaacs, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Aduro stated, “The second quarter of 2020 was highlighted by the announcement of our planned merger with Chinook Therapeutics as well as significant progress in our BION-1301 program for IgA nephropathy (IgAN). We recently dosed the first IgAN patient with BION-1301 in Part 3 of our ongoing Phase 1 study and presented positive data from Parts 1 and 2 of this study in healthy volunteers at the 57th ERA-EDTA Virtual Congress. The data indicated BION-1301 was well-tolerated, had a half-life of approximately 33 days, achieved over 90% target engagement with a single 450 mg dose of BION-1301, and demonstrated dose-dependent and durable reductions in IgA and IgM levels, and to a lesser extent, IgG levels. We continue to enroll patients in our Phase 2 study of ADU-S100 in combination with pembrolizumab in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and make progress on our cGAS-STING antagonist research collaboration with Lilly. We ended the second quarter of 2020 with a cash position of $186.1 million, which we believe will enable us to continue our ongoing STING and APRIL programs in the near-term and also meet our net cash requirements at the close of the merger with Chinook.” 

• Shares of INVO Bioscience (INVO) closed at $4.70/share up 11.37%.

• • Today INVO Bioscience, Inc. (INVO), 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, today announced the appointment of two seasoned executives, Barbara Ryan and Matthew Szot, to its board of directors, effective immediately. To make way for their appointments, Kathleen Karloff and Michael Campbell have both agreed to voluntarily step down from their board positions to assist the company in achieving an independent board majority. Mr. Campbell will remain as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Business Development, while Ms. Karloff intends to continue to advise the board and assist the operating team on a go-forward basis. Ms. Ryan founded Barbara Ryan Advisors, a capital markets and communications firm, in 2012 following a more than 30-year career on Wall Street as a sell-side research analyst covering the US Large Cap Pharmaceutical Industry. Previously, Ms. Ryan was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank/Alex Brown and Head of the company’s Pharmaceutical Research Team for 19 years and began her research career covering the Pharmaceutical industry at Bear Stearns in 1982. Ms. Ryan has deep experience in equity and debt financings, valuation, SEC reporting, financial analysis, and corporate strategy across a broad range of life sciences companies. During Ms. Ryan’s career as an analyst, in addition to covering the large-cap pharmaceutical companies, Barbara also covered the drug wholesalers and PBMs and was the lead analyst on many high-profile IPO’s including Express Scripts, PSSI, Henry Schein, and Flamel Technologies. Ms. Ryan has extensive global buy-side, sell-side and financial media relationships, and has provided support and counsel on several of the highest-profile deals in the biopharma industry, including Shire/Abbvie, Shire/Baxalta, and Allergan/Valeant. Barbara led the IR/PR programs for Radius Health, the best performing IPO of 2014, for 4 years, Eloxx Pharmaceuticals for the past two years, and served on the Executive Team at both companies. Ms. Ryan has provided strategic communications counsel for Cardinal Health, Purdue, Zoetis, Radius Health, Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, Agenus, Centrexion, Esperion, ContraFect, Relypsa, Shire, Allergan, and Perrigo. Ms. Ryan’s opinions and expertise are widely sought; she is frequently quoted in the press and appears on CNBC. Ms. Ryan currently serves on Pharmaceutical Executive’s Editorial Advisory Board, the Executive Advisory Board for the Prix Galien Foundation is a member of the Life Sciences Council of Springboard Enterprises and is a member of the Board of Directors of Gilda’s Club NYC, and a Faculty member at the GLG Institute. Ms. Ryan Chaired the Board of Villa Maria School, a school for children with learning disabilities, for 8 years. Ms. Ryan is the Founder of Fabulous Pharma Females, a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of women in the biopharmaceutical industry.

• • 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. 

• • I am expecting to see the company push forward with new market supportive initiatives and awareness of their INVOcell product in the back half of 2020 that may result in further adoption in the US clinics and establishing new joint ventures, partners, and distributors throughout the world.

  • Tiny Float – INVO has ~7.89 million shares outstanding and with ~+15% insider ownership the share float is tight and recently confirmed that the company raised ~$3.5M.

• North American silver and gold producer Hecla Mining Company (HL) ended trading at $5.78 down .34%. 

• • Hecla recently announced that its Board of Directors is increasing the expected minimum quarterly dividend 50% to an annualized one and one-half cents per share and lowering the silver-linked dividend threshold price. If Hecla’s average realized silver price for a quarter is $25.00 per ounce, the new silver-linked quarterly dividend policy provides an annualized two cents per share, while at $30 and above, the realized silver-linked dividend per quarter is unchanged. Recently, Hecla reported 24% higher revenues on higher production and prices in Q2 2020.

Economic Reports

• On Monday, we did not receive any significant reports.
• On Tuesday, we received the macroeconomic schedule produced three reports of significance as the Industrial production report confirmed a rise of .4% month/month in August while the capacity utilization rate report confirmed a rise to 71.4%. The Empire State Manufacturing Survey report for September came in at 17 above expectations. The Import prices report showed a rise of .9% in August; while prices, excluding oil, also rose .7%. Export prices moved by .5% in August while prices, excluding agriculture, rose by .8%.

Investing & Inspiration

“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