The Bot Brief

"There is no force on earth more powerful than an idea whose time has come."       

- Victor Hugo

Bots In the News:

Earnings and the Japanese components of the Bot Index helped boost the Index to a weekly return of 3.89% versus the S & P 500’s 3.25% gain. Easing of inflation was attributed to the general market increase although price indices remain relatively excessive to carry the rally much further.

Three components treated their shareholders to double digit increases, the greatest of which was the 23.02% return by Accuray Inc. The company reported better than expected sales and earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter. The company lost 4 cents versus last year’s 12 cent decline and consensus expectations that the quarter would come in at a 6-cent loss. Revenues came in at $110 million, about flat from last year’s figures, however, would have been higher if service income hadn’t been hit by foreign exchange charges.

Oceaneering International’s surprise sales of $524 million exceeded the year-over-year figure and consensus. The stock gained 10.29%.

The final double-digit returner was in the Japanese portion of the portfolio. Cyberdyne gained 17.22%. The shares of Yaskawa Electric rose 5.09%, OMRON Corp jumped 5.19%, Fanuc Corp. rose 8.07% and Keyence gained 4% as the NIKKEI 225 moved from 27,980 to 28,546 on Friday-to-Friday trading.

Two domestic defense companies produced stellar results last week as AeroVironment rose 8.61% and Textron jumped 5.71%. AeroVironment has moved from $78.68 to close the week at $97.93 capping four weeks of positive returns.

Faro Technologies has also been riding a positive wave for the past five weeks, jumping 8.61% in last week’s trading.

Azenta was the only large loser for the week as poor earnings drove the stock down 10.04%. Both revenues and earnings were depressed for the quarter, with sales up only 3% yoy and off 9% from the prior quarter. Earnings per share were a negative 13 cents versus a 53 cent gain last year.

AI and Big Pharma:

Our readers may recall that we did a piece on the importance of Artificial Intelligence on the creation of new drugs. Hitherto fore, the development of pharmaceuticals was a hit or miss use of laboratory trials using human repetitive actions. However, with the advances of AI, some of the burden, and time commitment, of those tasks can now be replaced with machine learning. In an article last week published in Bloomberg, author Lisa Jarvis explored recent mapping of proteins by Alphabet’s DeepMind project. According to the article, DeepMind “stunned the world of science by presenting something truly spectacular: a snapshot of nearly every existing protein on Earth – 200 million of them.” Since proteins are the building blocks of all forms of life, the nature of proteins, their configurations and weaknesses can be identified and possibly altered to correct flaws. As Ms. Jarvis noted, “{AI} is fundamentally changing the way new medicines can be invented.”

All this means is that mankind has another tool to assist in improving the health and, possibly, the lifespan of our species. Knowledge is power and that power can dramatically speed up the process to understand how life works and how it can be improved.

Member: American Economic Association, Society of Professional Journalists, United States Press Association. Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, Robotic Industries Association, Member IEEE.

The Bot Brief is a weekly newsletter designed for economists, investment specialists, journalists, and academicians. It receives no remuneration from any companies that may from time to time be featured in the brief and its commentaries, analysis, opinions, and research represent the subjective view of Balcones Investment Research, LLC. Due to the complex and rapidly changing nature of the subject matter, the company makes no assurances as to the absolute accuracy of material presented.