"There is no force on earth more powerful than an idea whose time has come."
- Victor Hugo
Bots in the News:
This week the markets all performed pretty well based upon some good economic news and less concerns about tariffs. Good news from the PCE Price Indexes, Personal Income and a significant turnaround in the Goods Trade Balance allowed the S & P 500 to jump 1.88% while the Bot Index increased a bit over 2%. The robots would have come in even greater except for weakness in several of the Asian companies.
The best performance within the Bot Index included two aerospace manufacturers. AeroVironment, one of the prior week’s best, continued to shower its investors with a 5.30% jump. It was, however, news of a $250 million investment by Toyota to Joby Aviation that spawned the 17.95% jump in that company’s stock. The California-based transportation company is developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing air taxi which it intends to operate as part of a fast, quiet, and convenient service in cities around the world. This ‘air-taxi’ company will utilize its vertical takeoff and landing crafts to provide commercial transportation services.
The weakest performer was by the Chinese electric auto manufacturer NIO Corp who fell 7.33%. The low-priced stock declined 7.33% to lead other Asian components such as OMRON Corp. -2.60%, Hiwin Corp. -2.6% and Faunc -1.85%.
‘Man the Torpedoes’:
On March 31, 2011, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) formed an independently, publicly traded company when two legacy shipyards joined forces to become the nation’s largest shipbuilder. Since then, HII’s portfolio expanded further with the establishment of a third division that delivers all-domain technology solutions to civil, commercial, and defense customers both domestically and internationally.
This week HII announced it has worked successfully with the U.S. Navy to launch and retrieve an all-purpose drone from the tube of submarines. In a test with the U.S.S. Delaware, HII’s drone entitled Yellow Moray demonstrated the capability to deploy a drone through an existing hatch creating new opportunities for surveillance, scouting and other missions. The Yellow Moray will assist current submarine forays as it can carry out missions that are too shallow or too deep. The trial demonstrated the feasibility of deploying robotic and autonomous systems from submarines, opening new possibilities for clandestine operations and battle preparation.
“DELAWARE is just the beginning. We plan to continue to deploy submarines with robotic and autonomous system capability worldwide so we can give more options to our Combatant Commanders by enhancing the capability of our SSNs,” said Commander Submarine Forces, Vice Admiral Rob Gaucher.
Member: American Economic Association, Society of Professional Journalists, United States Press Association. Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, Robotic Industries Association (now A3 Automation), Member IEEE.
The Bot Brief is a weekly newsletter designed for economists, investment specialists, journalists, and academicians. It receives no remuneration from any company 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 materials presented.
