S&P 500 & Nasdaq Power Up to New Record Highs As Apple, FAANG’s Tesla, Tech Sector & Existing Home Sales Surge

It was a week in the markets that seemed to be dominated by Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA) narratives as they pushed forward to all-time new record highs while the FAANG’s & the tech sector, in general, rose significantly to push the S&P 5oo and the Nasdaq to do the same.

The growing number of coronavirus cases in the world and specifically in the US remain ongoing concerns. Worldwide coronavirus cases now number 22.8M up from 21M last week and we have now seen 796k deaths up from 762k deaths a week ago. The US still leads the world in this unfortunate situation and now has confirmed 5.62M cases up from 5.31M cases last Friday and 175k reported deaths up 168k deaths last week. The associated delays or rollbacks of reopenings in the US continue to add a cloud of darkness in some investors’ minds and cast a shadow over the worldwide economy, but the markets continued to charge forward in this stimulus charged and historically low rate interest rate environment. However, further economic stimulus in the US was held up again this week as the Nancy Pelosi controlled House continued playing political games during this Presidental election year and the Democratic National Convention virtual procession.

The macroeconomic schedule produced a number of interesting reports this week with a few positive surprises including Friday’s Existing Home Sales report for July which confirmed a massive 24.7% month/month rise to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.86M while total sales in July rose 8.7% from a year ago. As for the balance of the weekly reports, on Monday, we received the JOLTS or Job Openings report which confirmed that job openings moved higher to 5.889M in June. On Tuesday, we received the Producer Price Index report for final demand which rose .6% in July while excluding food & energy, the index increased .5%. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index report also confirmed a decline to 98.8 in July. On Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July report confirmed a rise of .6% month/month 7 when you exclude food and energy the CPI also increased rose .6% month/month beating consensus expectations.  The Treasury Budget report confirmed a $63B deficit for July and y/y improvement from $119.7B. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report also confirmed a 6.8% increase. On Thursday, the initial claims report for the week ending August 8 fell by 228k to 963k dropping back below the 1 million mark for the first time in 5 months while continuing claims for the week ending August 1 dropped by 604k to 15.486M. The import prices report confirmed a rise by .7% in July & when you exclude oil it only bumped up .2%. The export prices report also confirmed a rise by.8% in July and when you exclude agriculture it moved up by .7%. On Friday, the retail sales report confirmed a rise of 1.2% in July, and when excluding autos it rose 1.9%. The Nonfarm business sector labor productivity report confirmed outside move higher of 7.3% in Q2. while unit labor costs jumped 12.2% in Q2. The Total industrial production report confirmed a rise of 3% in July while the capacity utilization rate moved up to 70.6%. The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment report a rise for August moving up to 72.8. The Business inventories report confirmed a decline of 1.1% in June. 

MARKET RESULTS & MARKET LEADERS

The Dow ended the week at 27,930.33 basically flat for the week and remains down 2.1% YTD. Dow 30 component Deere (DE) closed at $199.50/share, up 4.4% on Friday after they beat Wall Street’s Q3 expectations while offering improved net income guidance for the fiscal year. The Walt Disney Company (DIS) closed at $127.44/ share down from last Friday’s close of  $130.53/share. Pharmaceutical giant Merck (MRK) closed at $84.98/share up from last Friday’s close of $83.48/share, energy giant Chevron (CVX) closed at $985.08 down from last Friday’s close of $90.35/share, Caterpillar (CAT) closed at $138.43/share down from last Friday’s close of $139.96/share while Walmart (WMT) closed at $131.63/share up .81% on Friday after beating earnings expectations earlier in the week as e-commerce sales grew at nearly a triple-digit pace while achieving a new 52-week high of $137.63/share intraday trading.

The S&P 500 closed at a new record high of 3,397.16 gaining .7% and is now up 5.1% YTD, realizing an advance for a fourth straight week. The Nasdaq Composite closed at a new record high of 11,311.80 moving ahead by 2.7% and now is up 26.1% YTD. The highly weighted FAANG’s ended the week overall up w/w. Facebook (FB) closed at $267.01/share, -.74% Friday ($261.24/share a week ago), Apple (AAPL) closed at $497.48/share, 5.15% on Friday after recently announcing 4-1 forward stock split and achieving a amazing $2.13 trillion valuation this week ($459.63/share a week ago), Amazon (AMZN) closed at $3,284.72/share, -.38% Friday ($3,148.02/share a week ago), Netflix (NFLX) closed at $492.31/share, -1.12% Friday, ($482.68/share a week ago), & Alphabet (GOOG) closed at $1,580.42/share, -.08% Friday, ($1,507.73/share a week ago.) Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) had another amazing week as it closed at $2,049.98/share up 2.41% Friday and up from $1,605.71/share last Friday’s close. 

Six out of 11 sectors ended the week in the green as the technology sector gained 3.5%, the consumer discretionary sector added 2.4%, and communication services moved up 1.7% to lead all sectors.  The energy sector had the worst week tailing off 6.1%.

In an off week for the financials sector, shares of Goldman Sachs (GS) closed trading at $202.43/share down from last Friday’s close of  $207.97/share, American Express (AXP) closed at $96.15/share down from the $100.41/share last Friday, Visa (V) closed trading at $204.13/share up from the $196.64/share last Friday & shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) closed at $51.10/share up from last Friday’s close of $52.30/share.

It was an off week for healthcare in general outside of a few massive biotech partnering and buyout deals were made to increase and/or develop new pipelines. The S&P 500 healthcare sector closed at 1,243.13 down a touch from the close at 1,243.21 last Friday. The Ishares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) moved a lower again this week closing at $132.60 vs. last Friday’s close of $133.36. The 52-wk range is $92.15 – $146.53. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (^BTK) closed at 5,293.04 down from the 5,555.58 level last week. The new 52-week high is 6,166.14.  One of the biotech bonanza deals saw shares of Momenta Pharma (MNTA) closed at $52.12 up 69.2% on Thursday after it was announced that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) ($152.76,+.88% on Friday) would be acquiring Momenta for ~$6.5B in cash. This move allows J&J to take a rather large step into the field of immunology.

COMMODITY MOVES

Gold prices closed at $1,94o.89/oz. pulling back from $1,944/0z. last Friday & silver prices closed at $26.88/oz. up slightly from $26.54/oz. last Friday in the volatile week. North American silver and gold producer Hecla Mining Company (HL) ended the week at $5.81/share down from last Friday’s close of $6.04/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. 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. North American silver producer First Majestic Silver (AG) closed at $11.55/share down slightly from last Friday’s close of $11.69/share after recently establishing a new 52-week high of $14.57.

Oil prices ended at $42.31/bbl up another .6% from last Friday’s close of $42.05/bbl. Energy giant Chevron (CVX) moved lower this week to close at $85.08/share ($90.35, last wk) and Exxon (XOM) moved lower closing at $41.01/share ($43.20, last wk.) Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) closed at $13.16/share down from $14.64/share last Friday. Midstream player, Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), closed trading at $18.12/share down from $18.85/share last Friday and currently sports at an attractive $1.78/share dividend or 9.8%. USA Corporation Partners, LP. (USAC), one of the nation’s largest independent providers of natural gas compression services, closed at $11.73/share down from $12.06/share last Friday and currently sports a juicy $2.10/share (17.78%) dividend.

MONEY UPDATE

The U.S. Dollar Index strengthened a little to end the week at 93.20 up from 93.10 last week or .1%

The yield curve tightened this week. The 2-yr Treasury yield closed up 4 basis points w/w closing at .17%, the 10-yr yield closed down 7 basis points ending at .64 while the 30-yr yield ended at 1.342% down from 1.448% last Friday.    

NEXT WEEK

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

NEXT WEEK’S KEY MACROECONOMIC DATA

• The consumer confidence on Tuesday
• The durable goods on Wednesday
• The personal income and spending on Friday

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

NEXT WEEK’S KEY MACROECONOMIC DATA

• The consumer confidence on Tuesday
• The durable goods on Wednesday
• The personal income and spending on Friday

STOCKS IN VIEW NEXT WEEK

Shares of Atossa Therapeutics (ATOS) closed at $3.38 on Friday down from $3.71 last Friday. 

• • Interest continues to swell around both their breast cancer treatment and two COVID-19 drug programs.

  • 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 when Atossa announced that it has received approval from the ethics committee to open a Phase 1 clinical study in Australia using Atossa’s proprietary drug candidate AT-301, to be administered by nasal spray. All necessary approvals have now been obtained and enrollment is expected to begin in the next 30 days.

  • 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.

• • Recently, 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. Hopefully, he is right!

  • 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.

  • We are hoping that ATOS successfully advances one or both COVID-19 programs by receiving IRB and FDA approval to move into the clinic this fall.

• Shares of INVO Bioscience (INVO) closed at $4.09/share up from $3.55/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 $5.81 down from $6.04/share last Friday.

• • Recently, Hecla reported 24% higher revenues on higher production and prices in Q2 2020.

  • Phillips S. Baker, Jr., Hecla’s President, and CEO stated, “Despite the pandemic, Hecla had its second-highest quarterly silver production since 2016 which, combined with higher prices, resulted in almost 25% more revenue than a year ago and generated about $27 million of free cash flow. I am extremely proud of our workforce’s adaptability and commitment in this challenging time which positions Hecla well to improve our cash flow generation in this higher silver and gold price environment. Hecla currently produces about a third of all the silver mined in the U.S., almost three times larger than the next primary producer. That number is expected to grow as Lucky Friday ramps up. As the United States’ largest and oldest silver producer with America’s largest silver reserve and resource, Hecla gives investors unique exposure to higher silver prices.”

• • 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 34.41/share last Friday and this Friday closed higher at $36.12. 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 $8.52/share up from $8.15/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.

• • Chairman, CEO & Founder of NeuBase, Dietrich A. Stephan, Ph.D., will present at Tribe Public’s Webinar Presentation and Q&A Event that is scheduled to begin at 8 am pacific/11 am eastern on 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. To register to join the complimentary event, please visit the Tribe Public LLC website: www.tribepublic.com, or send a message to Tribe’s management at research@tribepublic.com to request your seat for this limited capacity Zoom-based event.
    Dr. Stephan is an industry veteran who is considered one of the fathers of the field of precision medicine, having trained with the leadership of the Human Genome Project at the NIH and then going on to lead discovery research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute and serve as professor and chairman of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. Stephan has identified the molecular basis of dozens of genetic diseases and published extensively in journals such as Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics, PNAS, and Cell. In parallel, Dr. Stephan has founded or co-founded 14 biotechnology companies and has advised an additional 12 companies. These companies are backed by top-tier investors such as Sequoia Capital, KPCB, Thiel Capital, and Khosla Ventures as well as corporate partners such as Life Technologies, Pfizer, and Mayo Clinic. Dr. Stephan received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and his B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.

• • 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 $3.05/share up from $2.40/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.”

• TransEnterix (TRXC) closed trading at $.4335/share dup from the $.4109/share last Friday after reaching an intraday high of $.5560/share recently.

• • TRXC is a medical device company that is digitizing the interface between the surgeon and the patient to improve minimally invasive surgery.

• • On Aug 5, TRXC announced its operating and financial results for the second quarter of 2020. Anthony Fernando, President, and CEO of TransEnterix stated, “Despite operating in a challenging environment throughout the second quarter, we made significant progress towards our goals for the year, which include increasing system installations, increasing procedure volumes globally, and continuing to gain regulatory approvals for new technologies and expanding indications for use for the Senhance. Leveraging the momentum we generated in the first quarter, we were able to sign two new system leases in the quarter while at the same time maintaining the quality of our pipeline. Additionally, we made progress against our portfolio expansion and clinical validation efforts. While procedure volumes were down in the quarter, we saw a strong rebound from April to June which has continued into July. We continue to believe we are well-positioned to deliver on our strategy and bring transformative technology to surgeons, hospitals, and patients globally.”

• • On Monday, July 6th TRXC announced the closing of $15M registered direct common share offering at $.35/share and came into focus on our radar as it is again “gassed up” for the time being.

• • TRXC shares swiftly came down from the $1 level prior to the deal that was priced at $.35/share (no warrants) as it would appear that shorting and/or a significant amount of selling took place prior to the closing of the funding.

• • TRXC shares have already bounced twice post the recent funding from the $.30 cent range to above the $.50 level and if recent stock performance is evidence then it could be at least heading back to the same level soon and if lucky could recover to predeal levels.

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:

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