Tag: investing

Last take a quick look at last week’s action in the S&P 500.  After having that furious v-bottom rally the past two months the index ran into a strong resistance level and was met with rejection.
Third time not a charm
If you look at the chart in this post you will see that the 2810 area on SPX is a strong resistance point since late October as price was turned down after rallying to it multiple times.
Thus, it is not a surprise that after a large move higher the index ran out of gas at this level.  After a sell of

Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. focuses on the discovery and development of RNA-based therapeutics, gene therapy, and other genetic medicine approaches for the treatment of rare neuromuscular diseases.

Big Pharm is in search for the next $1 billion drug as most disease categories have been conquered. One exception is gene therapy. Gene therapy is treatments designed to replace faulty genes with healthy ones.

In 2018 Novartis acquired gene therapy player AveXis for $8.7 billion. On Feb 22nd, Roche said it will buy Spark Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ONCE) for $4.3 billion, or $114.50 per share, a premium of about 122%.

Recently, Sarepta Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SRPT) acquired a

Six month ago, I talked about Tesla’s nemesis, Nio,

Move Over Tesla, Here Come Nio

The newest competition is Nio. Nio manufactures and markets electric vehicles. Nio already has a vehicle in production and they have delivered over 1,000 units under EP9, EVE, and ES8 brand names.

Nio was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Shanghai, China and already has financial backing from Baidu and Tencent. This past week, Nio had an initial public offering on the New York stock exchange. They plan to use the money to ramp up production of their current ES8 and launch new vehicles in China first

Emerging markets and the US dollar are inversely correlated.  The US dollar helps drive emerging market performance in part because commodities and commodities are major exports in the developing world. When the dollar strengthens, commodities become more expensive in dollar terms, thus less demand and when the dollar weakens, commodities become less expensive in dollar terms, thus more demand.

With US interest rates now on hold, logically the dollar should fall in price in 2019.  And because China accounts for about a quarter of the ETF, EEM and trade deal between the US and China should only cause the EEM to

Urban Outfitters posted stronger-than-expected fourth quarter earnings Tuesday, with sales over the holiday period.  Urban Outfitters brand sales increased 4% from the same period last year, the group said, while Free People sales rose 4% and Anthropolgie Group sales edged 2% higher. Gross margin also improved for the period of 33.3%.  However, guidance for the upcoming quarter was dismal where the company is forecasting first-quarter comps to be flat to down a low-single-digit.

Urban Outfitters’ slow start to the first quarter could “swing positive” in the second quarter due to the company’s ability to “pivot intra-season” and correct any inventory or

Kroger is one of the largest supermarkets in the country, but now it’s in the process of being Amazoned.

Kroger has expanded its organic and natural food selections to better compete Whole Foods Market.  And to their credit are investing in online grocery orders and grocery deliveries.  In May of 2018, Kroger bought a 5% stake in British online retailer Ocado in exchange for an exclusive deal for its grocery service, which led a 58% increase in digital sales for the fourth quarter.  It’s all part of Kroger’s plan to compete.

Restock Kroger initiative is a three year initiative to increase digital

Dollar Tree is the largest dollar chain with over 14, 000 stores.  Dollar Tree has been successful to this point because of their perceived value.  Essentially you pay for what you get and the items are sold in a smaller unit size.  But they have done some clever things as well.  They have kept the items they sell to a minimum, so they have a high inventory turns and stores do required a whole lot footprint and they sell a ton of private label items, which helps their margins.

To compete with the likes of Walmart, they purchased Family Dollar in