The Bot Brief

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

- Victor Hugo

 

 

Bots in the News:

 

In the abbreviated trading week, the Bot Index jumped 2.82%, beating the S & P 500 by 107 basis points. The bots were aided by its Japanese holdings and three traditional names that performed well. The best performance was turned in by Teledyne whose fortunes rose by 8.56%. The company’s fourth-quarter numbers were well above expectations. Not only were  Q4 revenues of $1.50B well above the consensus $1.45B, earning per share came in at $5.52 versus expectations of $5.23. 

 

ABB Ltd. gained 7.66% on relatively high volume and AeroVironment rose 6.88%. The increase by AVAV was attributed to the purchase of a similar drone producer. Redwire announced it would acquire the artificial intelligence (AI) company and drone-tech specialist Edge Autonomy. The report sent the former's stock flying, ending the week at a gain of 45.78%. Defense stocks and drone manufacturers are attuned to the changing dynamics on the battlefield and the ever-increasing cost advantage of both small and large unmanned aircraft.

 

iRobot continued its decline following a disappointing earnings report and Tesla slid 4.67%. Analysts expect Tesla to post revenue of $27.27 billion for the fourth quarter, with net income expected to come in at $2.31 billion, or 65 cents per share. In the same quarter last year, Tesla recorded $25.17 billion in revenue and $7.93 billion in net income.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the December edition of IEEE’s Spectrum magazine, there was an interesting article with the byline reading, “The Scramble to Preserve Submarine Stealth in an Age of AI and All-Seeing Sensors.” The extensive feature discussed the rising utilization of nuclear submarines, whose need for stealth is increasing due to AI prompted detection efforts. There were three new efforts to counter the sophistication of sensors. The first idea involved an actual increase in ‘noise’ to serve as a detraction from the signature of the traditional submarine’s propulsion system. The second was the use of ‘cyber attacks’ on the more sensitive areas of sensor locations. The third avenue for stealth was the use of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV’s). In the aforementioned note of Redwire’s purchase of Edge Autonomy, drone technology and financial efficiency could prove a major advantage to protect the multi-billion-dollar investments in Virginia class ‘boomers’. As one expert noted, “the rise of smaller and cheaper uncrewed systems will allow these ‘disposable UUVs’ to become killers if armed. Their disposability would enable countries to use them more aggressively, enter contested spaces, and ‘mess with the data’ collected by sensor networks. By flooding the zone with false signatures, navies can expose the hunters who chase the false targets and possibly even waste away the adversary’s expensive weapons systems.”

 

Clearly, much like stealth developments in aerospace defense and the use of ‘chad’ missile confusing technologies, underwater employment of more sophisticated systems will continue to evolve.