“Markets Rise In Face of Middle East Tensions” Vista Partners Daily Market Recap For January 6, 2020

We have just completed the first day of the first full week of trading of the new year and it was a bit of a roller coaster. The markets were met with an ugly hangover and sluggish weight from the rising tensions in the middle east as the widely reported footage of massive crowds in Tehran for the funeral of  Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani continued to spread. Initially, the markets seemed to be in a free fall sort of in reaction, but by the end of the day the fear and worry seemed to be shrugged off and the markets recovered to end the day in green territory across the board.

On the day, the S&P 500 ended at 3,246.28, +.35%. The S&P 500 communication services sector was the leader ending +1.2% as the FAANG stocks pushed forward closing as follows: Alphabet (GOOG) $1394.21/share, +2.47%, Facebook (FB) $212.60/share, +1.9%, Amazon (AMZN) $1902.88/share, +1.5%, Apple (AAPL) $299.80/share ,+.8%, & Netflix (NFLX), $335.83/share, +3.05%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at 28,703.38, +.24%. The Nasdaq Composite moved well above the 9k level and ended at 9,071.47, +.56% but shy of its recently achieved record high of 9,093.43.

The Russell 2000 also joined the green party moving higher by +.14% ending at 1663.26.

The “fear gauge” Vix (TVIX) also ended down at $50.77/share, -2.18% and traded in a range of $50.75 – $55.24.

Two cybersecurity-related firms rose in light of the recent hacking issues associated with the middle east tensions. CrowdStrike (CRWD) closed at $55.11/share,+8.6% and Finjan Holdings (FNJN) closed at $2.20/share, +9.45%.

Economic Reports

We did not receive any significant economic data today.

Investing & Inspiration

“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

Tomorrow

We are due to receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index report for December, the Trade Balance Report for November and the Factory Orders Report for November on Tuesday.

Here are three trading ideas in biotech to check out:

• 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, closed today’s trading up another +9.25% closing at $2.48/share.

•  Aduro Biotech, Inc. (ADRO) closed at $1.18/share last Thursday and has interesting data points due in the 1st half 2020. Today it closed up another +9.92% closing at $1.33/share.

• 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 $7.19/share, +1.70%.