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September’s Markets Welcomed A Weekly Reversal, Volatility & Labor Day Weekend

By John F. Heerdink, Jr.


I hope that all of you are out enjoying a wonderful 3-day Labor Day weekend here in the US and the balance of you are safe and sound around the world enjoying yourselves as well. 

The first week of September welcomed a reversal of sorts coupled with increased volatility in the markets. All indices moved lower week over week after the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 powered to all-time highs earlier in the week. Will we slide further? There is a good chance that it could happen, but I think it is safe to assume that at least increased volatility will be with us for the time being and possibly through the end of the year with a number uncertainties and the presidential elections alone could increase concerns.  Cash is always and truly king so act accordingly when and remember this will help you see more clearly.

Doesn’t it seem like it was so long ago that markets precipitously dropped almost 35% with the belief that the world was coming to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic? Believe it or not, that happened in 2020 and it is still 2020. It truly has felt like one of the longest years of many of our lives. 

As far as this week’s mix of circumstances and the associated mix of emotions that affected the psychology of the markets, it would seem that further confusion, hope, and possibly doubt continued to grow in all directions and specifically in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conflicting reports continued to surface surrounding the success or lack of success in controlling the growth of COVID-19 in the US and abroad. Along with these issues, stories surfaced that were set to supposedly assure us that a vaccine would appear by Nov. 1st. Unfortunately, from my understanding and more importantly the research of many more brilliant and experienced scientific minds that I have access to, it would seem that the Nov. 1st date might be quite optimistic. Also, even if a vaccine did surface, it may not be as effective as we might hope. Basically, science, research & testing cannot be rushed and it should and could take longer to bring forth reliable vaccines, treatments, etc. no matter what we might wish for today in our heart of hearts and/or our politicians may want us to believe. With that in mind, the growing number of coronavirus cases in the world and specifically in the US should remain an ongoing concern and we should stay alert and wear at least wear a mask to slow its growth and show some respect for your fellow man. Note that worldwide coronavirus cases now number 26.4M up from 24.6M last week and we have now seen 870k deaths up from 833k deaths a week ago. The US still leads the world in this unfortunate situation and now has confirmed 6.17M cases up from 5.92M cases last Friday and 187k reported deaths up 181k deaths last week. With all of this being stated,  I truly wish that effective vaccines and treatments swiftly come to the forefront and beat all timelines and speculations.

The macroeconomic schedule produced the following reports this week: On Tuesday, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index report showed a drop to 84.8 in August. However, the New home sales report jumped 13.9% month/month in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 901k. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index report for June confirmed a move higher by 3.5% & the FHFA Housing Price Index report for August confirmed a rise by .9%. On Wednesday, the new orders for durable goods report confirmed a rise by 11.2% month/month in July & when you exclude transportation, new orders climbed 2.4% month/month. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report confirmed a drop of 6.5%. On Thursday, the initial jobless claims report for the week ending August 22 confirmed a drop by 98k to 1.006M, while continuing claims for the week ending August 15 dropped by 223k to 14.535M. We also received the second estimate for Q2 GDP which showed output dropped at an annualized rate of 31.7% while the GDP price index was down 2%. On Friday, the Personal income report showed a rise by .4% month/month in July while personal spending moved up by 1.9% month/month The PCE Price Index and core-PCE Price Index equally ticked up by .3% month/month as the PCE Price Index is now up 1% year/year & the core PCE Price Index is now up 1.3% year/year. The final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August elevated to 74.1. The Chicago PMI for August dropped to 51.2 while wholesale inventories dropped .1% in July.



MARKET RESULTS & MARKET LEADERS

The Dow ended the week at 28,133.31 down 1.8% for the week and is now down 1.4% YTD and turning green for the year last week. The Dow 30 shuffled up its line up this week as it added Salesforce (CRM), Amgen (AMGN), and Honeywell (HON) & led Exxon Mobil (XOM), Pfizer (PFE), & Raytheon Technologies (RTX) to the exit door. Around the Dow 30, Deere (DE) continued its recent run and closed at $211.34/share up over 2 points or $209.90/share after recently beating earnings expectations. The Walt Disney Company (DIS) closed at $131.99/share down from last Friday’s close of  $135.54/share. Pharmaceutical giant Merck (MRK) closed at $85.24/share slightly down from last Friday’s close of $85.65/share, energy giant Chevron (CVX) closed at $81.93 dropped almost 4 points from last Friday’s close of $85.63/share, Caterpillar (CAT) closed at $148.18/share up from last Friday’s close of $143.63/share while Walmart (WMT) closed at $142.83/share up from last Friday’s close of $140.28/share after recently beating earnings expectations as e-commerce sales grew at nearly a triple-digit pace while achieving a new 52-week high of $153.33/share in intraday trading this week. On the downside, shares if  Microsoft (MSFT) slid 6.4% to close at $214.25/share this week.

The S&P 500 established a new record high of 3,588.11 this week prior to closing at 3426.96 losing 2.3% and remains up 6.1% YTD. The Nasdaq Composite achieved a new record high of 12,074.06 before closing at 11313.13 moving down by 3.3% and now is up 26.1% YTD. The big move up in in the early part of the week and the subsequent fall was powered significantly by tech stocks and specifically, the volatility of the highly weighted FAANG’s ended the week as follows:  Facebook (FB) closed at $282.73/share, .-2.88% Friday ($293.66/share a week ago), Apple (AAPL) completed its forward split this week rising to a new all-time high of $137.98/share prior to closing on Friday at $120.96/share, up .07% on Friday. Amazon (AMZN) closed at $3,294.62/share, -2.18% Friday ($3,401.80/share a week ago), Netflix (NFLX) closed at $516.05/share, -1.84% Friday, ($523.89/share a week ago), & Alphabet (GOOG) closed at $1,591.04/share, -3.09% Friday, ($1,644.41/share a week ago.) Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) also completed its forward split reaching a new all-time high of $502.49/share prior to closing at $418.32/share up 2.78% on Friday, but it was an amazingly volatile show for shareholders throughout the week seeing it pullback at one point more than 20%.  Speaking of volatility, shares of Zoom (ZOOM) at one point surged more than 40% after they soundly beat wall street expectations while reaching a new all-time high of $478/share prior to closing at $369.89/share down 3% on Friday. 

Around the financial sector saw a bit of mix bag of tricks this week, as shares of Goldman Sachs (GS) close trading at $210.94/share up from last Friday’s close of  $207.71/share, American Express (AXP) closed at $105.67/share up from the $102.54/share last Friday, Visa (V) closed trading at $204.66/share down from the $215.71/share last Friday & shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) closed at $52.71/share down from last Friday’s close of $52.89/share.

COMMODITY MOVES

Gold prices closed at $1,934/oz. dropping from $1,965/0z. last Friday & silver prices closed at $27/oz. down from $27.58/oz. last Friday in a relatively flat week as these two precious metals seem to be bound again within a tighter range after surging earlier this year. North American silver and gold producer Hecla Mining Company (HL) ended the week at $5.58/share down a little from last Friday’s close of $5.90/share after recently establishing a new 52-week high of $6.79. Recently, Hecla reported 24% higher revenues on higher production and prices in Q2 2020. Next Wednesday, September 9th at 11 am eastern, President and CEO of Hecla, Phillips S. Baker, Jr. will present at Tribe Public’s Free Webinar Event and be available for Q&A at 11  am eastern. His presentation is titled “A Uniquely Scare Investment.” You can join by visiting Tribe Public’s website www.tribepublic.com. North American silver producer First Majestic Silver (AG) closed at $11.50/share up from last Friday’s close of $12.21/share after recently establishing a new 52-week high of $14.57.

Oil prices ended at $42.97/bbl up another 1.6% from last Friday’s close of $42.31/bbl. Energy giant Chevron (CVX) moved higher this week to close at $85.63/share ($85.08, last wk) and Exxon (XOM) moved lower closing at $40.69/share ($41.01, last wk.) as it prepared to exit the Dow 30 next week.  Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) closed at $13.13/share down from $13.16/share last Friday. Midstream player, Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), closed trading at $17.69/share up from $18.12/share last Friday and currently sports at an attractive $1.78/share dividend or 10.27%. USA Corporation Partners, LP. (USAC), one of the nation’s largest independent providers of natural gas compression services, closed at $11.27/share down from $11.73/share last Friday and currently sports a juicy $2.10/share (18.36%) dividend.

MONEY UPDATE

The U.S. Dollar Index weakened a little to end the week at 92.32 up from 93.20 last week or 1%

The 2-yr Treasury yield closed down 2 basis points w/w closing at .15%, the 10-yr yield closed up 9 basis points ending at .73 while the 30-yr yield ended at 1.502% up from 1.342% last Friday.    

NEXT WEEK

We will be back with another full week of trading sessions.

NEXT WEEK’S KEY MACROECONOMIC DATA

  •  The Consumer Credit report for July
  • The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for August 
  • CPI data report
  • Hourly earnings growth report

We will also have”stocks in view” throughout the week:

 

STOCKS IN VIEW NEXT WEEK

Shares of Atossa Therapeutics (ATOS) closed at $2.07 on Friday.

    • ATOS’ stock has seen positive trading volatility this year as interest grew in their development programs in breast cancer and COVID-19. ATOS Shares have moved up from $.76/share on significantly increasing trading volume and established a new 52-week high of $5.08/share in August but pulled back this week. 

    • This week, 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.

    • On Aug. 13th, 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.
    • The Maxim Group’s Analyst Jason McCarthy, Ph.D. updated his research on Atossa Therapeutics stating “Factoring in COVID-19 Candidates, awaiting HOPE Study Initiation as Pandemic Continues – Raising Price Target to $8 from $4. 
    • 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 INVO Bioscience (INVO) closed at $4.25/share down from $4.40/share last week.
    • 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. 
    • Industry forecasts suggest that only 1% to 2% of the estimated 150 million infertile couples worldwide are currently being treated
    •  On August 13th, INVO announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020. Steve Shum, Chief Executive Officer of INVO Bioscience stated, “Despite the impact that COVID-19 has had in delaying fertility treatment for many around the world, we continue to make strong progress on our key goals to create commercialization agreements for our INVOcell solution. As we have been advancing our commercialization efforts outside the United States, industry leaders, as well as our internal team, have begun to recognize the expanded opportunity that exists through the creation of these joint ventures for developing dedicated, INVO-only centers in the U.S. and select markets around the world. The INVO center model also allows INVO Bioscience to participate in a greater share of the economics. Over the past year, we have had a number of conversations that started as standard distribution agreements that have evolved into potential joint venture agreements. We believe such partnerships, such as the one signed in India, will ultimately be mutually beneficial to achieving our goal to increase access to care and lower the cost of fertility treatment across the globe. Similar to the first quarter of 2020, the second quarter 2020 results were impacted by the COVID-19 virus outbreak which resulted in reduced product sales to Ferring. A majority of clinics curtailed their fertility services in connection with the lockdowns that occurred. Many of the clinics have since resumed operations, albeit at a measured pace. As a result, and along with Ferring’s required annual minimums, we expect to experience stronger sales in the second half of 2020. We also believe that new guidelines that requiring limiting interactions and social distancing at most clinics could favor accelerated adoption of our technology, which allows for a more streamlined cycle approach with fewer patient visits and reduced lab requirements and resources.”ng the same lines in the other 5 countries signed during that period. I am also expecting the company to give us some updates on other countries that could be added to their growing distribution network. 
    • Recently, a spotlight report was published by Birmingham, Alabama-based America Institute of Reproductive Medicine (AIRM) highlighting the success achieved in their practice utilizing INVOcell. INVO’s INVOcell® is the world’s only in vivo Intravaginal Culture System. “The AIRM clinic became an early adopter and advocate for the use of INVOcell shortly after we received FDA-clearance. We appreciate their willingness to share their story of that successful implementation of INVOcell within their clinical practice, which highlights important aspects of our INVOcell technology solution,” stated Steve Shum, CEO of INVO Bioscience. You can review the report here.
    • I am expecting to see the company push forward with new market supportive initiatives 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 the week at $5.58 down from $5.90/share last Friday.
    • This 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.
    • Next Wednesday, September 9th at 11 am eastern, President and CEO of Hecla, Phillips S. Baker, Jr. will present at Tribe Public’s Free Webinar Event and be available for Q&A at 11  am eastern. His presentation is titled ” A Uniquely Scare Investment.” You can join by visiting Tribe Public’s website www.tribepublic.com.
    • Recently, Hecla reported 24% higher revenues on higher production and prices in Q2 2020.
    • Cantor Fitzgerald Analyst Mike Kozak also updated his coverage moving his Speculative Buy rating to a Buy rating and moving his target price to $7.25/share.
    • If silver continues to drive higher as it has been this year, not to mention if Gold continues to move higher as it has, then it would seem that Hecla could continue to become a break out stock this year.
  • Shares of Fate Therapeutics (FATE) closed at $31.11 on Friday. Its all-time & 52-week high is $38.52 and its 52-week low of $12.59.
    • Fate is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of programmed cellular immunotherapies for cancer and immune disorders.
    • 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 July 9 Fate announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the Company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for FT819, an off-the-shelf allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting CD19+ malignancies. FT819 is the first-ever CAR T-cell therapy derived from a clonal master induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line and is engineered with several first-of-kind features designed to improve the safety and efficacy of CAR T-cell therapy. The Company plans to initiate a clinical investigation of FT819 for the treatment of patients with relapsed / refractory B-cell malignancies, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
    • 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 trading at $7.91/share slightly down from $7.97/share last Friday.  
    • NeuBase is making progress with its development of a modular antisense peptide nucleic acid (PNA) platform with the capability to address rare genetic diseases caused by mutant proteins with a single, cohesive approach.
    • On Aug. 13th, NBSE 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 $2.66/share down from $2.81/share last Friday.
    • 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.
    • Recently, ADRO announced that the first patient with IgA nephropathy has been dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial of BION-1301, an investigational humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody that blocks APRIL binding to both the BCMA and TACI receptors. “We are thrilled to have dosed the first patient with IgA nephropathy in the Phase 1 clinical study of our investigational anti-APRIL antibody, BION-1301,” said Dimitry S.A. Nuyten, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer of Aduro.
    • “The data Aduro recently presented from Parts 1 and 2 of this study in healthy volunteers at the 57th ERA-EDTA Virtual Congress 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 look forward to hopefully replicating this effect in addition to exploring BION-1301’s disease-modifying potential in patients with IgA nephropathy in Part 3 of the ongoing Phase 1 clinical study.”
  •  

Thanks again for your attention this week. Please continue to share your thoughts, questions, & ideas as we move forward. 

In the meantime, please enjoy the balance of the weekly newsletter’s videos, quotes, updates. My thoughts and prayers also go out to all of those that are having to deal and fight the California wildfires. I hope the rain comes and the wind slows down so that all can get back to normal. 

I will leave you with an insightful quote to help form your investment thesis this week:

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

 

 

Economic Reports

The macroeconomic schedule produced the following reports this week: On Tuesday, we received the ISM Manufacturing Index report for August which confirmed a rise to 56% or nicely above the Mendoza line representing expansion. The total construction report for spending confirmed a rise by .1% month/month in July while the total private construction spending report confirmed a move higher by .6%, however the total public construction spending report confirmed a drop by 1.3%. On Wednesday, we received the factory orders report in July which confirmed a rise by 6.4% month/month. The ADP Employment Change Report for August confirmed a slowing pace of rehiring activity seen in May and June however ~428k jobs were added in the private sector. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report confirmed a drop of 2%. On Thursday, we received the initial claims report for the week ending August 29 which confirmed a drop by 130k to 881k while the continuing claims report for the week ending August 22 showed a drop by 1.238M to 13.254M. The ISM Non-Manufacturing index report for August confirmed a drop to 56.9%. Q2 Productivity growth was revised to an annualized 10.1% while unit labor costs moved up 9%. The July trade deficit report confirmed widening to $63.6B while exports were moved higher by $12.6B from June & imports moved higher by $22.7B.On Friday the nonfarm payrolls report confirmed a rise by 1.371M while June nonfarm payrolls were reset to 4.781M from 4.791M. The private sector payrolls report confirmed a rise by 1.027M & June private-sector payrolls were reset to revised to 4.729M from 4.737M. The unemployment rate came in at 8.4% down from 10.2% in July. Average hourly earnings also rose by .4% while the average workweek in August was 34.6 hours ticing up from July.

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

“There is no such thing as no risk. There’s only this choice of what to risk, and when to risk it.” – Nick Murray

“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” – PopeFrancis

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

“Inaction and patience are almost always the wisest options for investors in the stock market.” – Guy Spier

“Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive.”  – Warren Buffett

“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

“The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo. I get up at 4:30 in the morning, seven days a week, no matter where I am in the world. I think it is important for people who are given leadership roles to assume that role immediately. What I’ve really learned over time is that optimism is a very, very important part of leadership.” – Bob Iger, Former Ceo of Disney

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine. But in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” – Ben Graham

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

“The fundamental law of investing is the uncertainty of the future.” -Peter Bernstein

“How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts?” -Robert G Allen

“Greed is all right, by the way. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”-Ivan Boesky

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

“I talk about macro themes a lot because they are fun to talk about, but it is the risk management that is the most important thing. The risk control is all bottom-up. I structured the business right from the get-go so that we would have lots of diversification.” -Michael Platt

“Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It’s almost always the wrong response.” -Larry Summers

Videos

Please consider viewing these interesting videos: